


Someone to Believe In

by Intangibel (duskbutterfly)



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternative Universe - Undercover, BAMF Eric Beale, BAMF Nell Jones, Canon Diverges at Season 4, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Demiromantic Nell Jones, Demisexual Nell Jones, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gunshot Wounds, Kid Fic, On the Run, Original Character Death(s), Season/Series 04, Sharing a Bed, Undercover Missions, Undercover as Married, there's a mole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 80,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29655297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duskbutterfly/pseuds/Intangibel
Summary: "Didn't you ever wish that there'd been an error? That you belonged, not with the people who were technically your own age but with all the other kids who were doing the same work as you. So that you wouldn't be the odd one out, sitting off to the side with 'advanced' coursework. For once we have the opportunity to right a wrong in our school system before she learns what the word Nerd means or how kids use it."Nell and Eric get sent undercover, playing happy family to hide the daughter of two dead NCIS analysts, being hunted by a mole inside NCIS. Can they pull together, can Nell put aside her fear of depending on someone else for long enough to give this thing she has with Eric a real chance.Originally posted to Fanfiction.net 2012-2021.
Relationships: Eric Beale/Nell Jones
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. All I Ever Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> When I started this fic back in 2012 I wanted to explore Nell's past and what makes her tick, but I quickly realized that with all her walls a one-shot just wasn't going to cut it. I wanted to see what it would take to bring Nell and Eric together more naturally and to showcase how intellectually and technically brilliant these two characters are, despite often being used on the show for cheap laughs. What I ended up with was an incredibly complex undercover mission where Eric and Nell are in hiding but they're also trying to solve the case where the suspects are members of the IT team. It gets angsty but it's going to be a Happily Ever After for Neric.
> 
> I didn't know the words demisexuality and demiromantic when I started this fic but they come amazingly close to the way that I've always described and thought about Nell. I remember how closely I identified with Nell's confusion about whether she admired Eric, whether she thought of him as a brother, or was she actually attracted to him? How she was always edgy around men who expressed attraction to her. How important her friendship with Eric was to her and not wanting or needing that to change. I hope I can do that aspect of her character and her relationship with Eric justice.

**Chapter 1: All I Ever Wanted**

.

**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

.

"Didn't you ever wish that there'd been an error? That someone would walk into your classroom and say ‘Sorry, there'd been a mistake! Nell’s not meant to be in this grade but the one down the hall, with the kids two or three grades up.’ That you _belonged_ , not with the people who were technically your own age but with all the other kids who were doing the same work as you. So that you wouldn't be the odd one out, sitting off to the side with ‘advanced’ coursework. That for once, you got to do exactly what everyone else was doing without feeling like you were stuck playing with baby toys? For once we have the opportunity to right a wrong in our school system before she learns what the word Nerd means or how kids use it."

Nell had expected the frustration, maybe even an emotional appeal but the raw emotion in Eric's voice, the pleading look in his eyes and the echoes of clearly painful memories buried just below the surface? Those brought her something close to physical pain. She was pretty sure she would have rather had part of her slashed to ribbons than be standing here right now. Being here meant having to think about a time in her life when she didn't have the tungsten strength walls shielding her from the world. When she'd felt like the cracks in her paper-thin shell were being held together with sticky tape and she didn't want to open that door. But this was bigger than either of them. Bigger than protecting the vulnerable part of herself she kept hidden deep inside. This was about irrevocably changing a little girl's life.

"This isn't just a number on a page at the bottom of a file, Eric. We'd be changing a fundamental part of who she is. Changing the year she was born could create irrevocable damage in other parts of her life. While you're at school your age is everything but we don't spend our whole life at school. And just because it wasn't good for us, doesn't mean her experience will be the same." It hadn't come out in the clinical, logical tone she'd wanted. She could hear the banked up emotion slipping in, echoing some of Eric's.

"How many times have you been 'the youngest person to' do whatever it is you're doing?” Eric snapped back. “How often do people question if you're the right person for the job based solely on the year on your birth certificate? Because that certainly didn't stop when I left College let alone high school." For the first time since they'd started this conversation, Eric sounded angry.

Nell couldn't help wincing inwardly at the truth in what he said. The only difference between being 'the youngest' at high school and after she'd left, had been that she'd learned how not to let it hurt her.

If she'd had time to think about it she would have realized she'd never actually seen him get angry before. Annoyed, protective, frustrated but somehow there was always a part of him that seemed to hold back, that stopped him from ever reaching that tipping point of true anger, the kind that could escalate into rage. The kind of emotion that made people without control lash out at whatever was closest with their tongues or fists.

.

"Mr. Beale. Miss Jones." Hetty's voice cut through the tension in the room like a knife, denying Nell her chance to answer.

.

For just a moment she thought Eric was going to tell Hetty to keep out of it; that he would lose some of the non-confrontational nature which seemed infused in his very being. But while the intensity still burned in his eyes he acknowledged Hetty and allowed her to take control of the situation. He hadn't given up his case but was prepared to be temporarily redirected.

Nell had never been so relieved to hear Hetty's voice as she was right now. She knew it was cowardly, and she'd hate herself for it later, but she didn't want to answer. Eric was one of the only people in her life she didn't have to lie to but in this case, what would the truth have cost her? She'd locked all those memories up in a box and there was nothing good that could come of opening that lid. She had not just survived but walked away stronger, that was all she cared to remember.

Standing with hands clasped behind her back, her expression foreboding, Hetty looked at her two Techs facing one another on opposite sides of the Island, their stances combative. It had already been an extremely stressful case and with one of the other pairs, she had the feeling they would have already moved this conversation to the gym so that they could channel all their frustration into physical action. Eric, for the first time ever, looked like he almost wanted to hit something - but Hetty knew was stronger than that. He had no affinity with violence and unless forced to fight by extreme duress, she had the feeling he never would. Nell on the other hand was capable of violence but it still wasn't instinctive. There were people like Callen, Ziva, and Herself who had it written into their DNA; people like Gibbs and Sam whose training had redefined their instincts; and people like Kensi and Deeks who'd found institutions to help control that violent part of them that the harsh realities of life had exposed. But Nell was different. She didn't fit any of the normal agent profiles. Although she had shown she could perform highly as an agent, her motivation was a desire to have the most balanced skillset possible. It enabled her to understand so much more than just intelligence analysis, diplomacy, or logistics. By being trained in the field she could anticipate problems, get the right information to the right people and respond rather than react without the usual burdens of formulaic logistical planning. The one thing she lacked was the indestructible nature of an agent, but her compassion was also a strength. Yes, Hetty was very glad to have Nell at her disposal. She'd known there would be teething problems - the best often liked to work alone, but each pair she created balanced one another.

She'd known, as soon as the case had come to her attention, that it would test Nell and Eric more than anyone else on the team but she'd hoped she wouldn't be needed as a mediator so quickly. Then again, she wasn't strictly needed yet, but right now she needed their A-game and that meant them working together. If this situation didn't have the unpleasant stench of an inside job there would be other options: safe houses, well-known and highly trained agents but right now, what she needed was a way to hide in plain sight, even if it meant breaking protocol.

"You both," Hetty began, looking from one to the other significantly, "make excellent points. However, something has happened which means we need to change our plans. It will no longer be sufficient to merely create a new identity for Bethany and assist in her movement into foster care and hopefully adoption. Her life is still at risk and until we can neutralize that threat I am sending you undercover as her guardians."

Almost as soon as Hetty completed her sentence Nell and Eric were opening their mouths but before either of them could get a single syllable out in protest, Hetty held up a hand and continued.

"We have a six-year-old girl with an IQ rivaling yours Mr. Beale, who has just lost both her parents - who, need I remind you, were some of our own. We do not know yet why they are after her but the only people who have managed to break down her walls and gain a little of her trust so far have been the two of you. Miss Blye and Mr. Deeks, while more accustomed to undercover work, can't relate, and sadly to blend into a community with the least possible scrutiny, you still need a mother and a father, which rules out Mr. Callen and Mr. Hanna. There will, of course, be surveillance and your training Miss Jones will be sufficient to protect you until back up arrives in the highly unlikely event that this red-herring style operation becomes dangerous."

Nell's mind was in a tailspin. She was _not_ the right person to be put in charge of any six-year-old let alone one who was grieving her parents' deaths and being hunted by unknown forces. “But–Hetty, I don’t know anything about kids. I’m really not parenting material.”

“Are you kidding? You’re great with kids, Nell. Didn’t your sister say her two didn’t want to leave after their last sleepover at your place?” Eric protested.

“That’s because staying with me is a novelty! They’re on their best behavior, I’m feeding them sweets and putting on movies and none of us ever get enough sleep but it’s okay because it gives my sister and her husband a night off and then I get to give them back the next day.” Nell sighed, the fight draining out of her as she got the crux of the matter. The fact she just isn’t good at opening her heart to people, letting them people in close enough to get attached. It was just easier to keep everyone at arm’s length, it didn’t hurt so much that way when they eventually left. “They’re not relying on me, Eric. Not the way Bethany would be. She’s just lost both her parents and she’s going to need…she’s going to need so much.”

“But you wouldn’t have to do it alone, Nell. It doesn’t have to all rest on your shoulders, that’s what partners are for.”

"What she needs right now Miss Jones, is for the people protecting her to have some hope of distracting her from that loss. Your colleagues almost turned this place upside down hunting through every cupboard and drawer looking for anything she could play with. She sat in the middle of every pencil, crayon, and bobble-headed desk accessory we have, quiet and withdrawn. Didn’t crack so much as a smile despite some truly woeful attempts at drawing and even sadder attempts at puppetry. What they couldn’t see was that she was no more likely to be stimulated by those activities than they were. She needs to be challenged, the way Mr. Beale did with that Sudoku, and you did with the treasure hunt. We can’t change the past, but we can help make the next weeks as comfortable for her as possible.”

_Nell had been watching from the balcony when Eric had made the breakthrough. Clearing a space and sitting down beside her, tablet outstretched, asking her for help with his Sudoku because he was stuck and her dad at once told him she was a master at solving them. The rest of the team had winced and bitten down hard on their tongues, holding their breath and hoping this wasn’t going to be what broke her. They’d all tried so hard not to mention her parents. But the dejected little girl had come alive. Confident little hands had reached for the tablet and to everyone's amazement, she began to chatter away about how they were her favorite thing to do. Her face clouded as she told Eric she got to help her dad with the one in the paper every morning but with some gentle encouragement from Eric, she was working away eagerly again on his puzzle._ _Going so far as to climb into his lap with him holding the tablet so she_ _had two free hands to try to solve the puzzle. Bethany, with her serious expression and the tip of her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration, was utterly gorgeous. But it was Eric who held Nell's attention the longest. She'd never thought about him being a father one day, but looking at the way he played with Bethany, she couldn't help but hope he had his own little girl someday._

_Bethany had become so attached to Eric that he'd ended up having to stay doing Samurai Sudokus with her and it had been Nell, hours later who'd finally managed to entice Bethany, with the promise of Oreos and a treasure hunt she'd set up in the gym so that Eric could have a short break and set up the conference call between Hetty & Sec Nav to update him on the progress in the case. She'd tired Bethany out enough to hand her over to Kensi to supervise her nap, which is how both she and Eric were now back in Ops._

Nell's thoughts were derailed by the swoosh of the Ops doors sliding open and she looked up to see a blur of red and white charging towards Eric. It took Nell a second to realize, as impossible as it should have been for Bethany to find them, she had. Eric meanwhile had already reached down to swing her up into his arms.

"What are you doing up here, Munchkin?" he asked as she wrapped arms and legs around him as though clinging on for dear life.

Bethany was saved from answering by the doors of Ops sweeping open a second time to reveal an out-of-breath Kensi. "I swear I only took my eyes off her for a second. One minute she's sleeping peacefully on the couch the next thing I know she's halfway up the stairs and all she had to do when she reached the top was say 'Eric' and some helpful - uh - person - pointed her in here! I'm telling you, she's going to be a sprint champion one day."

Eric, however, wasn't listening. He'd gently shifted so that he had a free hand to tuck the curtain of blonde hair hiding Bethany's face, back behind her ear.

"Why didn't you tell Kensi you'd woken up?" He asked quietly. “I would have come back downstairs like I promised.”

"I thought I'd lost you!" Bethany began with a sniff. "Then I remembered you said you worked upstairs and I thought if I came up here then you wouldn't have to go away again. I can sit quietly I promise, just don't make me go away." Eric's heart had melted the moment she'd thrown herself at him. Between her effort not to cry and her big hazel eyes looking up into his, he knew he was a goner. He might not be ready to be a father, terrible at undercover ops, and way too in love with Nell to come out unscathed after pretending to be married to her - but there was no way he was going to let anything happen to this little girl. If Hetty said this was their best shot at protecting her, then he was prepared to give up his chair in Ops for a house in some sleepy neighborhood.

"It's ok, I'm not going anywhere. I've got you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you," Eric said earnestly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as she rested it on his shoulder.

Looking up, Eric's eyes met the other pair of hazel eyes he was unable to resist. He knew the idea of them looking after Bethany scared her, but he couldn't look after Bethany alone.

Nell knew they didn't really have a choice, Bethany had forced their hands. There was no way to separate Bethany from Eric now and he was her partner so by default it was her job to protect them. Her logical mind told her that NCIS: Office of Special Projects did have other female agents but Nell felt a stab of something like pain at the idea of Eric pretending to be married to someone else. She wasn't jealous; it just might not be safe - for Bethany. No, it definitely wouldn't be safe. After all, Eric couldn't act, but at least he and Nell spent so much time together they anticipated the other's actions, which would minimize telling mistakes.

Nell took a moment to try and strengthen her walls. She had a feeling that while Eric seemed to have an art for getting her to lower them around him, the combination of Eric and Bethany would defy even the tensile strength of tungsten. Then she stepped forward to stand beside Eric, placing a hand on Bethany's back.

Looking at Hetty, she nodded, signing herself up for what would probably be the hardest mission of her life.


	2. ]Welcome to Bakersfield

**Chapter 2 - Welcome to Bakersfield**

.

**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

.

It was, Nell decided, quite different trying to create a false identity for yourself.

She and Eric created hundreds of false identities each year without batting an eyelid but knowing they were going to be actually living in this one had them dragging their heels and getting caught up on ridiculous things. Like their current argument about _what their names would be.  
  
_

“What about – Steve?” Eric suggested. “I could be a Steve.”

“Veto!”

“What? Come on Nell.”

“No, Eric, we agreed there wouldn’t be any pop-culture references. Your favorite comic is Captain America so I’m sorry, but you have to pick again.”

“Fine, James then.”

“Seriously, Eric? And how often would you make Bond jokes? Whitman, James, Whitman?!”

“Fine. How about we pick your name then.”

“How about, Katherine?”

“Kathy? Kate? Ugh. You just don’t look like a Kate. I’m calling veto.”

“Okay…what about Genevieve?”

“Oh no, definitely not. I have an ex-called Jenny and she was crazy!” Eric said, with a shudder. Shaking his head when Nell started to laugh. “You don’t understand. When I say crazy I mean, committed to a facility, for stalking level crazy.”

“Wow!” Nell said, stifling her laughter as she patted Eric on the back, “Okay, so, we’re vetoing that one.”

“We’re not getting anywhere – are we?” Eric said with a sigh, leaning against the Ops island, all the fight draining out of him.

“We might actually be going backward,” Nell conceded.

“What if–“ Eric began, cutting a sideway glance at Nell.

“What if, what, Eric? Are you thinking preemptive vetoes? Because I could get behind that.”

“Actually, No. I was thinking maybe we should pick each other’s names.”

“Huh. That could actually work. Okay –“

“Write down your top three and we swap in five?” Eric suggested, going for the post-its.

“You’re on!” Nell agreed, gel pen already gliding across the first sheet.

.

“I’ll take those, Mr. Beale, Miss Jones.”

Eric and Nell’s heads snapped up, staring at the spot where Hetty had appeared before them holding out a hand to each of them. Wincing, they both handed over their post-it notes.

“Very well, you, Mr. Beale, are now Marc Whitman.”

“Niiice. Good job, partner. That even works with Griffiths. That’s the maiden name I had in mind – although I guess it’s probably not called a _maiden_ name if you’re male. Is there a word for the men if they take their wife’s last name?”

“Wow, um, okay. So – you’d actually do that? Take my name?” Nell asked, feeling her cheeks burn hot as _Eric Jones_ rang through her mind.

“Of course, I would –“

“Not that it’s actually my name we’re talking about, because we’re talking about the Op but –“ Nell cut in as she realized how monumentally she’d lost track of this conversation.

“Which makes you, Miss Jones, Sally Whitman. I’ve spoken to Bethany and she’s picked, Chloe. Almost immediately I might add.”

“Chloe. Yeah, I like that,” Eric said smiling as he mouthed the name again to himself.

“She’s a genius alright,” Nell agreed, quietly relieved they weren’t about to start the whole name debate again. And that Bethany had somehow hit upon a name that she and Eric both liked.

“I took the liberty of getting one of the up-and-coming assistants in the HR department to get a head start on writing CVs and cover letters to match the jobs you picked out as being the most suitable. He thinks it’s a training exercise for our cover departments, but you should be able to substitute out the false company names I gave him quite easily. I assume you’ll take care of ‘adjusting’ which other applications manage to get submitted?”

“We’re filtering the applications with a dummy submission form superimposed over the real one.” Eric began, allowing Nell to pick up where he’d left off.

“We’ll delay some if we have to, but the jobs had both been previously advertised at least once so I’m confident we won’t have to adjust too much.”

“And the town you’ve chosen,” Hetty said, “take me through that.”

“Bakersfield,” Nell said, picking up her tablet and tossing the key stats up onto the big screen. “Is the 9th largest inland city, home to 347,483 Californians.”

“74.8% of all households are families with an average family size was 3.5,” Eric added, “the majority of which are opposite-sex married couples with kids under the age of 18.”

“Which means we should fit right in,” Nell added.

“Well, except the fact that it ranks lowest in the number of adults over 25 who have a bachelor’s degree.” Eric countered. “But that, combined a 9% rental vacancy rate is actually to our advantage. Most ‘talent’ is coming from outside the region which is why neither of us is super worried about getting those jobs we’re applying for.”

“We’ve picked a three-bedroom house a short walk from the best elementary school in the area.”

“Ranks in the top 10% of the state. Nothing but the best for our girl, after all, we _are_ trying to hide a genius in plain sight.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all sorted. Does that mean it’s safe for me to send Bethany back in? Mr. Callen and Mr. Hanna are ready for a reprieve. Or perhaps I should say, Bethany, is ready for one.”

As soon as Hetty was gone, Eric rushed into speech, clearly trying to get out whatever was on his mind before Bethany came up.

“You aren’t mad at me for assuming I’d take you’re alias’ last name, right? I mean, if it’s weird then we can just switch the names back.”

“What? No, it’s sweet. I was just – surprised. I guess, I’d never really thought about it that closely before. I mean, sure it comes up every time I go to a hen’s night or a wedding, but it’s always been a topic to be debated, you know? It’s one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion on.” Nell shrugged, “I get that because on one hand, I’m very attached to all seventeen letters of my name and the history that goes with it, but I also really like the symbolism of having one name for the new family unit. But I didn’t think I’d ever get married, so I just never actually picked a side.”

“You don’t think you’ll ever get married?” Eric whispered, sounding even more stunned than he looked. “And would that be because you’re ideologically opposed to the idea? Because it is totally cool if you are, it can be a bit archaic…or…”

“I just can’t see how a marriage can work with the job we do,” Nell said stiffly, feeling all her barriers slam into place as though readying for battle, unwilling to meet his eyes. “Building even a short relationship on the web of lies we have to tell is messy enough. You miss way too many birthdays and holidays, get pulled out of bed at crazy hours, and don’t come home for days. It just doesn’t seem worth breaking my heart over and over trying to find someone who could take that uncertainty, only to have to lie to them every day.”

“Yeah, I mean – I get that. We’ve all lost friends and romantic partners along the way but surely the chance to find someone you can love with everything you have is worth it, right?” Eric asked tipping her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “I mean, you must realize how many people would kill to marry someone as amazing as you.”

The moment was broken by the swoosh of the ops’ doors opening and Nell used the distraction to reestablish some distance between them. But she was surprised to find she felt less stressed about trying to manage this fake relationship, now that all that was out there in the open.

Leaving Eric to focus on getting Bethany settled, Nell turned her attention to finalizing the details of Chloe’s identity and submitting the paperwork to enroll her in the school they’d chosen.

In the end, they'd decided it would be safer to make Chloe’s birthdate two years earlier. They didn’t think it was likely that anyone would know her exact birthday, but they’d be looking for a younger child of very high intelligence. If she was doing work in a class two grades above where she should be, she’d seem like any other kid, able to do the set work without being even slightly remarkable. Any way of drawing less attention to her seemed preferable and they were more than capable of providing any additional support or challenge academically from home. This identity was, after all, temporary and it would give her a chance to experience more normal schooling, and if that was what she wanted they'd look at how to make a compromise that would minimize any disadvantage to her socially in her permanent identity. Nell still worried, as she guessed any parent would worry, about putting a six-year-old in with eight-year-old kids - but while she could be idealistic about what was 'correct developmentally' in the role of a parent, Eric had been right, she'd often wished someone could have done this for her. And early, like this, before she'd ever understood that she was different from anyone else.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Nell kept her eyes peeled for any sign that someone was following them as the US 101 became the CA 170 N, only occasionally flicking them back to the road ahead to aid in navigating the morning rush-hour traffic as they made their way to Bakersfield.

That was when she wasn’t keeping an eye on the scene playing out in the backseat. Eric, who normally rode shotgun, had compromised and was sitting in the middle seat in the back of the car. Putting Bethany behind Nell and between Eric and a locked door seemed safer than having her alone in the back; the middle seatbelt being least secure in a crash and sitting at either door alone seemed to be asking for a traditional child-focused carjacking. His seat allowed him to be close enough to both Nell and Bethany in case something happened and all being well, would enable him to monopolize Bethany's attention, freeing up Nell for spotting trouble - not to mention driving.

Eric certainly had Bethany's complete attention now. He'd discovered she liked making lists and word-games in addition to her penchant for Sudokus and they were currently taking turns to name fruit and vegetables for each letter of the alphabet. Eric had started them off with apple, Bethany had quickly said banana, Eric had come back with carrot and they were off! Whenever Bethany got stuck Eric would pretend to think it was his turn, earning a mock scowl from Bethany who quickly took the next letter, glossing over the fact that _technically_ now she was meant to think of a _second_ word which started with the letter Eric had butted in for. It was cute watching the banter between them and Nell even had a chance to add her two cents when both of them got stuck. She came to the rescue with 'Xigua' which she'd learned was a melon when she and her little sister had played the game years ago and had the same problem.

Despite the happy scene playing out in the backseat, both she and Eric were holding their breath, waiting for the full extent of Bethany's loss to hit her. Bethany's parents were never coming back and while they knew Bethany understood death they hadn't seen any of the classic signs of grief except being worried when she didn't know where either Nell or Eric was. She'd been subdued and withdrawn with the rest of the team but seemed to have transferred her affection quite easily to the two of them and had been surprisingly willing to pretend they were her real parents. They, of course, had done everything they could think of to make it seem more like an elaborate game, and perhaps that was helping suspend reality, but Nell couldn't stop expecting, at any moment, for the other shoe to drop.

.:.

Being experts in planning they had developed contingency plans for their contingency plans; had examined every smash and grab scenario they'd ever used, heard, or thought of and had their best deputies on point tracking the traffic cams for anything they could have missed. The whole team had been roped into ensuring the move went safely. Kensi and Deeks arrived first, late last night and after a quick recon of the house and yard, were on surveillance duty. Sam and Callen were driving the moving van and would arrive about five minutes after Eric, Nell & Bethany as though they'd been following them. They had, in fact, all taken separate routes, but Nell and Callen had been careful to continue past the turnoff to Bakersfield and double back to approach from the North as their cover listed their last address as being in Fresno.

Agents disguised as electricians fixing code violations in the wiring in the ceiling insulation were installing cameras around Ronald Reagan Elementary School so that they could keep tabs on Bethany without needing to have a team protecting her at school. Eric and Nell had agreed that between them they would always walk her to and from school, minimizing the time she was ever alone. In this area, her apparent separation anxiety was a blessing in disguise as it offered the perfect justification for always having one of them around. The 'electricians' had also visited their new home, setting up cable tv (a satellite link), fixing broken outdoor lighting (installing cameras and sensors for the yard and perimeter), and inspecting the phone line (creating a second secure landline off the records). They'd decided it was unlikely anyone would notice if the 'electricians' also happened to change the locks on the doors and the windows, despite that clearly not being part of the normal job description of any sparky and completely against the policies of the rental agency. They'd put the original locks back in before they left so no-one was ever likely to be any the wiser and if they were, then it would be: Over Planning 1, Uninvited Visitor 0.

.

.

**. .:. .. .: Safehouse, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

.

.

The house had been rented out furnished, which meant there were very few other items they needed, but to be convincing, they had a lot of boxes. Well, that and their den would double as a mini-ops center which required a _lot_ of hardware. Mostly it would be hidden behind fake cupboards or inside perfectly functioning devices such as the plasma tv and surround sound system.

With Sam and Callen's help, they’d gotten all the boxes unloaded and stacked in the room matching their contents within half an hour, including the box with the mugs and the coffee maker as well as the necessary equipment to make them each one.

They’d planned to spend an extra half an hour with the Callen and Sam going over some last-minute undercover advice. But Bethany was _so_ excited about their new house and that neither of them was having much luck getting a word in edgewise, so in the end, they headed out to grab lunch with Kenzie and Deeks before the drive back to LA.

Once they'd gone, Nell left Eric to help Bethany unpack her new room, while she tried to tackle some of the main rooms of the house. They figured that setting up the Den would have to wait until Bethany had gone to bed. It was going to be a massive effort to set it up so it looked to the casual, and the diligent observer, to be nothing more than a space to relax with the added ability to function as a second office when necessary. Not to mention recalibrating all of their equipment and establishing secure network connections. Little did she know, they’d have less than 15 minutes before their first neighbor dropped by to welcome them.

.:.

Three hours later they had met six families and amassed: two casseroles, a lasagna, an apple pie, a breakfast basket, and an enormous batch of choc-chip cookies. Having survived the first few waves with little more than the kettle and enough cups and plates out, Nell decided that what they _really_ needed was just one finished room to sit the endless flow of visitors in.

It turned out the neighbors had a fifteen-minute rule. There was a minimum of a fifteen-minute respite between the last lot leaving and the next ones arriving. It was just long enough to wash the cups and plates, refill the kettle and begin to relax before the doorbell rang again. After the fifth lot, Nell had handed the dishcloth and instructions about the cups and plates to Eric and rushed to move the majority of the boxes out of the living room. She'd had just enough time to find the box she wanted before the sixth lot had arrived but now that they'd left she had a plan.

However, unpacking the smallest box marked 'living room' was proving to be the most surreal part of the entire ruse. Every family has photographs. It would have been extremely unusual, especially with a small child, not to have them dotted all around the house. But they needed a focal point, and the obvious place had been the living room. Nell wasn't sure if her problem was, quite simply, the fact that they were all fake or the more complex one, that they looked _so_ real. They'd wisely outsourced the creation of them to another one of the techs working in Ops during their absence who had provided a list of locations for each photo and guidelines for creating a 'memory' to match. The three of them had posed in a variety of combinations but had no control over how those images had been transformed. One of the most incredible things was how easy it was to pretend to be Bethany's biological parents. Her sandy blonde hair curled gently at the ends just like Eric's, while you'd swear she'd inherited her hazel irises and delicate nose from Nell. Pulling the frames out one by one and laying them out on the coffee table Nell surveyed the collection of holidays, birthdays, and everyday moments that had never actually happened. She felt an odd sense of loss for not having actually been there and had those moments. It was completely irrational, but she couldn't shake it.

But by far the strangest photo was that of their 'wedding day'. All the rest, Nell could look at it and see in her mind them laughing and joking as they'd posed for the camera. But it was impossible for her to see anything except the final image with their wedding photo. She _knew_ it was just a highly sophisticated blend of two sets of images. The people wearing the light grey suit and stunning ivory gown were not Eric and Nell. But if Nell hadn’t been able to swear under oath she'd never worn that dress even she could have been fooled into believing it was them. The photo was so convincing that she had a hard time battling down the little part of her brain which pointed out just how stunning they were as a couple and how gorgeous wedding their wedding had been.

Trying to force her mind onto more logical and less emotional paths, Nell considered its creation. She had no idea when they'd even taken the photos they'd used of their faces because it definitely wasn't one of the deliberately posed ones. She was gazing up, with an unguarded joyful expression, while Eric looked down into her eyes. Initially, her mind rebelling, she'd tried to convince herself they'd just airbrushed her hair and eye color onto an existing face, but she couldn't deny that she recognized Eric’s expression. She'd caught him looking at her like that a couple of times over the past year, the admiration and something she didn't want to name, clear in every line of his face. Which had her re-examining her own face in the photo and having to admit that the more she looked at it, the harder it was to believe it had been airbrushed. She'd seen something similar once in the background of one of Kensi's photos, of her looking at Eric when she was out of his line of sight. It hadn't been in perfect focus, but the expression was unmistakably one of admiration. Which returned her back to the beginning. Staring at the photograph and almost blushing at the intimacy of the look they gave one another.

"Seven minutes and counting," Eric announced as he strolled into the living room.

Nell hastily thrust the wedding photo onto the coffee table with the others and delved back into the box for the last two. She could only hope that Eric hadn't been looking directly at her when he’d crossed the threshold into the room and wouldn’t notice the blush she was currently fighting to control.

Not yet ready to face him, Nell started to arrange the photos on the mantlepiece, so she had an excuse to have her back partly turned to Eric. Saying cattily over her shoulder, “I think our neighbors must have drawn lots for who got to visit at what time.”

Eric's soft laugh had a soothing effect on Nell's raw nerves. Relaxing her to the point where she could turn and face him.

“Do you think it looks okay having two of just Chloe on either side of the photo from our trip to the snow, or should I change one of them to be another photo of the three of us?” Nell asked, holding out a different photo for Eric to consider.

“I think it looks great, Sally,” Eric said, coming to stand beside her. They’d decided in car that from that moment onwards they’d only ever use their cover names to try to minimize the chance of them slipping. “Not that I know anything about decorating. ”

After a quick trial of combinations for the remaining three photos, the wedding shot had ended up on the side table off to the right of the sofa along with a photo of Chloe as a baby, while the larger family shot had been lent against one of the dividers in the bookshelf awaiting hanging on the wall next to it. Nell stepped back to admire her handiwork just as the doorbell rang.

"Seriously?! Do we have to meet the _entire_ street today?" Nell asked acidly.

She didn't bother hiding her exhaustion from Eric as she tried to gather herself in preparation for going over their cover story yet again.

The feel of strong arms curling around her waist from behind had her momentarily tensing before she let out a sigh and leaned her head back on Eric's chest, allowing some of his limitless energy to seep into her. In some ways, the charade of their relationship had been the easiest part of their cover. They weren't necessarily used to the physical side of looking like a couple, but they were used to moving in sync from working so closely together in Ops and took full advantage of their tendency to finish each other's sentences.

"It's going to be fine. There's nothing some nosy housewife and her irritating children can do, that can’t be done better by you. After all, you are the most incredible woman I've ever met."

The words were murmured into her ear, his warm breath tickling the sensitive skin. She'd been trying to limit the chance of unnecessary physical contact, but she had to admit that, right now, this is exactly what she needed. Giving the hands resting on her stomach a quick squeeze of appreciation she gently pulled away, before their visitor decided they were being rude, or Chloe beat her to the door.

Nell was relieved on opening the door to find just the one woman in her early thirties standing on the porch. After the seemingly endless parade of the young children that made up the third family to show up at her door, it was a relief that for once, someone had left both her husband and any kids at home.

Callie Hetherington turned out to be a mother of two young girls, aged five and nine, but her husband had taken them to a dance class across town. After subtly slipping in that her family had only arrived six months before them, she'd hinted that even if the girls had been home she wouldn't have brought them, saying jovially it seemed less overwhelming to just come by herself first. Nell couldn't help but like her. Rather than going over the story of why they'd moved to Bakersfield again, they'd had a relaxed chat about the perils of moving house and the challenge of ever again finding the things that you'd put away once you'd gotten tired. Callie had even refused a cup of tea or coffee, much to their relief as they were quickly approaching cup ten for the day. Nell was genuinely sorry, for the first time that day, when Callie had said she had to be getting home so she would be there when her husband James dropped their youngest home before taking their eldest to basketball practice. The exchange of numbers and promises to catch up soon was eager rather than forced. Even Chloe, who had been struggling with homesickness after the initial excitement of being in a new place had worn off, had managed a smile and a nod. At the door, Callie had taken a small, wrapped packet out of her handbag and held it out to Nell.

"It just something really little but I found it made those first few days just a little bit more bearable," Callie had said before heading back out onto the porch with a brief wave and beginning a fast walk down the street. Nell watched her turn into the small yard of the house three doors to the east before gently closing the front door.

Curious, Nell opened the packet, Eric looking over her shoulder with interest. Inside a clear plastic bag was a collection of chocolates in various sizes. Turning it over so she could read the label she laughed.

**.**

**\- Magic Mix** **-**

 _Everything from coffee beans to nuts to hard caramel dipped in rich milk chocolate._ _  
__A pleasant surprise each time you put one in your mouth and a magic energy boost to_ _keep spirits high in times of stress._

_._

It was a kooky idea but the lucky dip style, not to mention the chocolate, definitely had an appeal. The three of them had all been grinning as they'd tried to guess, before biting into their selection, what it would be. None of them succeeded in predicting it. Nell got a nugget of nougat, Eric a coffee bean, and Bethany had lucked into a caramel-filled one. It was a surprisingly more relaxed group who headed back to the kitchen having proven that they had at least _one_ sane neighbor in the street.

Their eighth set of visitors had Nell feeling like she was back in the time-loop but at least all the repetition was helping to cement their cover story. The impeccably dressed couple and their reluctant-looking son were almost creepy in the blandness of their personalities.

"You must be Sally and Marc Whitman," the woman had announced with a flourish as Nell opened the door. "I'm Helen, this is my husband Greg and our son, Norman - he's eleven."

Inwardly cursing the neighborhood’s fascination with starting the conversation by telling you your own name, Nell smiled and made the necessary welcoming remarks as she ushered them into the living room as Eric left to get the drink started.

“It’s so nice to have new neighbors, Sally,” Helen said, waving her husband off to sit on the other couch, manipulating Nell into taking the seat beside her. “Because let me tell you this is _such_ a nice neighborhood – of course, everybody wants to live here! And of course, Greg and I are just two doors down on your right. You’ve chosen a real nice house for yourselves, but you must come and visit us, Sally. Our place might not seem like much from the outside, but you won’t believe how nice it is inside. Greg did _so_ much work on it when they'd first moved in, he was _so_ clever like that.”

It was surprisingly easy to sit with Helen as she twittered on, requiring just the occasional nod and encouraging noise from Nell.

“And your daughter, it’s Chloe, isn’t it? Oh, and eight is such a fun age. They start learning all kinds of things at school and becoming their own little person. And she plays an instrument? Oh yes, the piano. You must be so proud of her. I know I am of Norman. He’s such an intelligent boy…” 

Nell couldn’t help being kind of impressed at the way Helen seemed able to monopolize the entire conversation, posing questions and simply answering them on Nell's behalf with the knowledge she'd gleaned from one or more of their earlier guests. Nell would have been hard-pressed to get a word in even if she'd wanted to. Luckily she had no desire to contribute to the conversation.

Greg, on the other hand, was grilling Eric and Nell could feel the tension rising between them with every question.

“Where was it that you said you lived before Bakersfield?”

“Fresno,” Eric replied shortly, his smile tight. “We moved there once I completed my undergraduate course.”

“You’ve got a bachelor’s degree then have you?” Greg asked condescendingly, “I supposed you’d have to be able to afford such a good neighborhood. What’s it in then?”

“Actually, it’s a Ph.D.,” Eric gritted out. “In Environmental Conservation in Urban Developments from Cal Tech.”

Eric had a momentary reprieve from the inquisition. A Ph.D. was clearly a lot higher than Greg had expected, but it seemed it would take more than one hard knock to get rid of this man.

"I hear that you were headhunted, Marc, to manage the new ecological preservation project at Aera Energy? Must have some pretty good contacts to get a role like that in one of the top employers in Bakersfield?"

Pushing down his irritation Eric did his best to make his answer respectful. It wouldn’t help blend in if he started pointing out that it was an awful lot easier to get a job in an area with well under half a million residents than applying in one of the big cities. He decided to settle for something which at least showed that he wasn’t a total pushover.

"Yes, we'd been looking to move somewhere more family-oriented than Fresno now that Chloe is at school. So, when Professor Ryan Campbell, the Dean of Geological & Planetary Sciences at Cal Tech, called and said he'd recommended me for a job with one of the top oil companies in California I was thrilled. It's so important for these companies to give back to the environment and be involved in the local community."

Calling Aera Energy a 'top oil company' was a stretch because it wasn’t actually _that_ large or influential. But also, because the term 'oil company' was such a generic description that it was completely misleading. But he could see Greg lapping it up and as this man was unlikely to understand either the specifics of the company's role or its size, relative to anything, there was no need to bother being accurate.

Greg looked a bit miffed at Eric's smooth answer, making Eric wonder if there was more to the jibe than just checking out the new guy on the block. He was very tempted to ask whether Greg also worked in the industry. He had a feeling that perhaps Greg had been hoping to get promoted to that job now that it'd been vacant for so long. But he needn't have worried about whether to ask or not, Greg was only too happy to control the conversation.

"And I suppose you haven't thought about what your wife will do or where your daughter will go to school?"

Eric's dislike of Greg was increasing with every self-satisfied syllable that left his thin lips. He supposed he'd been spoilt working for so long at NCIS who had a clear 'no morons' policy. Of course, they'd discussed the issue of Nell working during this mission. Weighing up the obvious downside of her not being able to help out as much in Ops or watch-over Bethany as closely, with the prospect of having to join in all of the Housewife activities of the neighborhood. Nell, despite knowing there were plenty of stay-at-home mothers who were perfectly sane, hadn't thought she'd be able to cope with the Housewife circuit all-day, every day. They also knew, in the current economic climate, that it would be more realistic for Nell to at least be working part-time. So, they'd settled on her working three days a week.

"Sally’s actually negotiating a contract at the moment,” Eric said trying very hard not to let his expression reflect just what he thought of the man. “You know how it is, we want to be sure one of us will always be home to pick up Chloe and to take her in the mornings, but that's the only thing holding up her taking a management role at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. And we'd never move somewhere without first ensuring we'd found a good school for Chloe.” Eric knew his answer came out sounding more than a little condescending towards his wife working but it was the best he could do while fighting the urge to tell Greg to take his stupid family and get the hell out of their house.

“She's enrolled in Ronald Reagan, which is why we chose this street,” Eric continued with an enthusiasm he was not feeling. “Couldn't believe my luck when I found a house in such a lovely street and just a few minutes’ walk from the school. I suppose you'll have some good tips on teachers and how the school runs as Norman must be in grade five or so?" Eric couldn't help but grin at the poorly disguised look of fury in Greg's eyes.

Helen, being well trained in the art of listening to multiple conversations at once, butted in with a slightly forced laugh. "Oh no, Norman goes to Leo B. Hart Elementary School. After all, it's where Greg went, and he turned out just _so_ clever."

"What a lovely history!” Nell chimed in, “But it's such a shame, I'm sure Chloe would have loved to have a familiar face at her new school." She had a terrible feeling that if she hadn’t spoken up then Eric would have. From his frown, he so clearly wanted to put the poor woman straight on the facts of the matter. Nell could almost hear Eric's likely diatribe on the subject in her mind: ‘ _Enrolling your child in a six out of ten API State Rank school when there were two much better schools within walking distance is plain irresponsible. Add Greg's odious demeanor and apparent lack of refinement and it does not, in any way, recommend Leo B Hart Elementary.’_

“Well, we really must be going,” Helen announced, cutting off any further conversation, much to everyone’s relief. “I wouldn’t want to be late getting the dinner on. Not that you need to worry about that Sally. Why you can just put the _delicious_ tuna noodle casserole I brought in the oven and it’ll be ready in no time.”

Making a litany of false promises about staying in touch and doing just what Helen said about the casserole, Nell ushered the other family out of the house. It had felt like a hardship holding the door and waving until they'd identified which driveway Helen's little troupe turned into. Not that Helen hadn't already explained, in far too much detail, which house was theirs. They might not expect trouble from any of the people in the street, but they had to be on their guard.

"I hate tuna and that man was nasty," Bethany said crossly.

Nell turned in surprise to look at Bethany, who'd been quiet most of the day. Bethany stood, hands-on-hips, between Eric and the front door as though prepared to defend him from Greg, should he be foolish enough to return.

With a genuine smile, Nell moved forward to put a kiss on the top of her head. "It's alright honey, we wouldn't eat it even if it was my favorite."

It seemed the most natural thing in the world when Eric swung Bethany up into his arms and settled her on his right hip, for Nell to take the extra step which would put her at his left side and for him to wrap his left arm over her shoulders. They walked together towards the kitchen; debating spiritedly, which of their numerous options, should become dinner and thinking of creative ways to destroy Helen's creation without damaging the china dish, which _unfortunately_ they would be expected to return.

The knowledge that she could get used to this had Nell pausing mid-breath, as though a vice had wrapped around her chest.

They hadn't even been in the house for a full twelve hours and already; Nell was finding it hard not to slip into the easy rhythm of family life. She wanted to say it was just because there was nothing she could do to help the team find Bethany's parents' killers, except play happy family and sell their cover to the neighborhood. But where normally, she'd have been driven mad by the feeling of impotence, she was actually almost enjoying this life and she knew then, it was going to be very difficult to walk away from Bethany and Eric when all of this was over.

She knew she was capable of doing it. She'd done it before. She just wasn't sure what kind of scar it would leave behind when she did. 


	3. No One Ever Said It Would Be Easy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team arrive in Bakersfield and the reality of being a couple and a family set in for Nell & Eric. Including Sharing a Bed!

**Chapter 3 – No One Ever Said It Would Be Easy.**

.

**. .:. .. .: Safehouse, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

.

"Remind me next time I even consider moving house – I hate it. Unpacking? Literally, my least favorite thing to do." Eric griped as he held up the cable kit for the fourth and final 'speaker', which hid almost all of their processing power. "I mean, I love setting up new tech. How is it, like, a million times less fun doing exactly the same task with old equipment?"

"Do think it would be possible to ship units like this out pre-cabled?" Nell asked from behind the TV where she was battling with the satellite link.

"Is there a limit on the amount of polystyrene? Because, if you had unlimited polystyrene and plenty of junior techs – then, yeah. We could totally do that."

"We're adding that to our Ops wishlist as soon as – Ouch! Of all the –"

"Sall? Are you okay back there?" Eric called back unable to take his eyes off the optical unit he'd just extracted from its case. "Sall?"

"Fine," Nell called back resentfully. "Nothing a sticking plaster won't fix but I _will_ be speaking to whoever was responsible for checking the circuit board that we got sent to modify this plasma with."

"Sharper than a saber tooth tiger?"

"As friendly and harmless as a hungry great white shark."

"That's rough. Need to switch for a while, I could trade you for setting up the retinal scanner?"

"You're kidding, right? I don't want to be blind _and_ bleeding because I still remember the last one we got called out to fix. So, thanks, but I'll take my chances with the rest of this."

"Probably wise," Eric conceded. "Time check?"

"Eleven thirty. You good to push on for another…" Nell looked around at the mess of boxes all around them, wincing.

"Hour of power and then we'll reassess?" Eric offered pulling a face. "I _really_ hate unpacking."

.:. . .:. . .:.

As if by mutual (awkward) agreement neither of them spoke as they made their way to the Master Bedroom, but if they _had_ been chatting away normally they would have broken off the second they passed through the doorway. The problem was glaringly obvious now that their focus wasn't on dumping the boxes marked 'bedroom' on their respective sides of the room and getting out as quickly as possible.

They needed to make their bed.

A fact which seemed far more intimate than when they'd made Bethany's bed just a few hours earlier.

"Sooo - ah - any idea where we put the bed linen?" Eric asked, addressing the room in general rather than looking at Nell.

With a quick scan of the possible boxes, Nell zeroed in on a big box with 'pillows' written on the side closest to her.

"I'm thinking this one," Nell said making a beeline for it and bumping into Eric who'd obviously just spotted the same thing. ' _Great!'_ Nell thought viciously. _'We were both so busy not looking at one another that we ended up colliding.'_

Feeling her face rapidly going from pale to bright red, Nell hurriedly stepped sideways away from Eric and tripped over her duffle bag.

' _Just great_!' Nell thought in the split second of realizing she was falling already having resigned herself to making an even bigger fool of herself. _'At least I'm falling further away from Eric, so I can't make this a trifecta!'_

But she hadn't factored in that while Eric was horrendous at all forms of coordinated exercise, he did have very quick reflexes. Also, possibly a vested interest in her safety given Callen had basically given Eric the shovel talk before leaving, something about all of the hairs on her head remaining just so? Sam had tried to help by pointing out it was Nell who had the gun but guessing by the look on Eric's face it was already too late for logic-based damage control. So, it probably shouldn't have surprised her when, rather than the hard floor rushing up to meet her, a pair of strong arms had pulled her back up. Just for a moment, Nell let her head rest against the warm cotton of Eric's shirt.

Clearing his throat Eric tried to step back but wasn't able to. ' _Because this day couldn't possibly get any better,'_ Nell thought bitterly, as they realized she'd unconsciously latched onto his belt to help stop herself from falling. Nell closed her eyes for a second feeling mortified, the phrase 'trifecta' echoing in her mind. She dropped her hand, holding both of them out to show that Eric was free but not daring to move again in case she made it four in a row.

"How about _I_ get the box and _you_ clear a bit of space around the end of the bed so we can move it out from the wall enough that we don't get squished trying to do the top end," Eric offered.

"Right," Nell nodded sharply and, being sure to look where she was going, started to edge her way around the pile of their stuff which was leaning against the end of the bed. "Oh, and Marc -" she spun round to look at him and waited until he looked up, "Thanks."

"Any time." Eric smiled and they'd gotten to work - just like they did in ops, seamlessly anticipating the other's moves and efficiently carrying out the task in-hand.

But as soon as the last corner was tucked in, all that the awkwardness came back, with a vengeance. Granger always said they specialized in awkward but this – this was a _whole new level of it._

"You know what? Why don't I go check on Chloe," Eric said after the silence had stretched _way_ beyond uncomfortable.

"Great!" Nell's smile felt forced. "Guess that means I get first run at the bathroom?"

"Right…" Eric said, looking as skeptical as she felt. "Actually, there's another bathroom down the hall. I'll grab my things and use that on my way back, let you get –" Eric gestured vaguely at her boxes, "settled."

"Thanks. Really." Knowing it was cowardly Nell latched onto his suggestion like a drowning swimmer being thrown a lifeline. With a smile of appreciation, she grabbed her night things, slipped quickly into the ensuite, shutting the door firmly behind her. It was only after she'd shut the door that she remembered they hadn't gotten around to unpacking any of the bathroom things except the toilet paper and hand soap. So, her towel and everything she needed for a shower was back out in the bedroom! Hearing the rustle of Eric pulling things out of boxes, Nell jettisoned her idea of a quick shower and settled for washing her hands and face with warm water instead. She waited until she heard the soft click of the bedroom door closing before changing into her PJs. There was nothing else to do but still, she delayed. Finally, Nell made herself unlock the bathroom door. Having double-checked she was still alone, she ventured out. Stuffing her used clothes back into the overnight bag before turning to face the bed. Despite the mess of half-unpacked boxes, the bed dominated the room. Blessing whatever star had convinced the owners to buy a king-sized bed, she pulled back the covers and slipped into the side closest to the door. They hadn't actually discussed whether either of them had a 'side', but Nell was claiming this one. The majority of her stuff was piled here so she figured she was fairly safe. Like she would at home, Nell wriggled around trying to get warm and find a comfortable spot but then she heard Eric's footsteps approaching. Nell froze. Taking a deep breath, she assumed what she hoped was a natural sleeping pose, as if she was one of those people who just put their head on the pillow and were immediately asleep. She had decided to face the door, just in case he normally faced the middle. With her eyes closed, Nell noticed Eric's steps slowed as he approached the door. There was a pause and gentle knock then, slowly, the door opened.

It seemed like _ages_ before Eric _finally_ finished moving around the room and approached the far side of the bed. Nell tensed when the covers moved and the bed dipped, adjusting to his weight, and didn't relax until he'd settled.

Nell chose to ignore the soft "Goodnight" he'd offered, and it felt like eons before his breathing evened out and it took on the deep rhythm of sleep. Only then did Nell feel like she could relax enough to even try to sleep. But she hadn't counted on him being asleep not being enough to quiet her mind.

Kept awake by the unusual bed (she felt like she was melting into the mattress, which was nice but different); the unfamiliar sounds of the house (so much quieter than her apartment and rather than the sounds of people and traffic she was used to, the house had a soundscape of its own). The feeling that she was facing the wrong way (because her bed at home was oriented North rather than East); but most of all by the knowledge that if she reached behind her, her hand would collide with a very real Eric Beale. If she was honest, she'd have been asleep after ten minutes if it had been the bed, the house, or the orientation, they were all part of normal holiday experiences. Eric did not usually come on her holidays. She could remind herself of all the reasons this was okay; they were best friends, she'd slept on his couch before, they were working, they were technically married – but none of that seemed to have any influence on the thoughts which were so loud they may as well have been having a screaming match inside her head.

 _'What if she woke up, as she usually did, in the middle of the bed? Or worse still gravitated towards the closest heat source? Tonight,_ had _to be okay because they had no idea how long this ruse was going to have to continue. Then again, she wasn't sure how she'd cope if she spent hours pretending to sleep each night but then had to be on her guard all day? How did this all suddenly get so complicated? They were adults. Good friends. They were at work - well technically at work. But they had a small child. Not their biological child but, a pretend daughter - not that Bethany didn't exist because, she did, and they had to protect her... And it's not like she and Eric had a_ thing _or anything. Because that would make this impossible but, well, she couldn't deny he liked her like that, but she... well, of course, she liked him, they were friends but... no! She wasn't going to think about any of this!'_

Nell tried to empty her mind, to remind herself that this was no different than any other op but apparently, she needed to be less tired to lie to herself convincingly. What she _wanted_ was to be able to call her older sister. Bec had kids and while she didn't know Eric's real name or what either of them really did at work, she always managed to understand about their friendship. And if, _perhaps,_ Nell had, in a weak moment mentioned Nate's comment about trying to make Eric jealous or the way Eric always pointed out the flaws in any guy who looked her way, then it only aided her understanding. Because they were _colleagues_ and _friends_ and that was enough. Nell wondered what Bec's advice about Bethany would have been? Not that she and Eric were doing badly so far. It's just the idea of potentially screwing up when so many bad things had already happened to this one little girl? That was scarier than trying to foil a terror plot. Nell had so many skills and none of them seemed to help one little bit. Bec probably would be laughing at her by now. She could admit, she was sounding paranoid. Thinking about it, Bec had been a bit of a train wreck when she'd gotten to the point where she could feel her baby move. The hormone-induced tears had flowed freely as she stressed about turning out to be a terrible mother. It had gone something along the lines of 'I was at this cafe and I really wanted a coffee and I know caffeine's bad for babies, but I still really wanted it.' It turned out Bec hadn't actually bought or drunk any coffee but apparently, just the act of craving it was enough to condemn her forever. At the time, Nell had tried really hard to be sympathetic. To point out to her that even a whole cup of coffee _every day_ is actually perfectly fine, doctors just tell you none so you can't go off and drink ten cups a day and blame them. But that had only produced more tears and Nell, unable to cope with this new even more irrational argument as to why Bec would be a bad mother, had changed tack and tried to make her laugh instead. Pointing out that their grandma had smoked, drunk, and worked her fingers to the bone not just right up until giving birth to each of her children but all their lives, and her kids were just fine. Well, except Uncle Arnold. He'd never stopped believing he was God's Gift to The World rather than the pompous ass he actually was. But that had probably been his schooling. After all, if you can't blame the parents, try the teachers next. Nell found herself smiling as she remembered them laughing so hard Bec had started hitting her, saying Nell was going to kill her poor, abused bladder if she kept this up. But it had worked. No more tears.

Calmer, almost as though she had actually spoken to Bec rather than just remembering, Nell finally felt as though she was slipping into sleep. Relieved to finally be done with this epic day.

**.**

**.:. .:. .:.**

**.**

Nell awoke to the unusual sensation of something tugging on the edge of her pillow and a small voice somewhere near her head. Groggy and disorientated it took her a moment to figure out what on earth was going on.

_Bethany!_

The flash of memory had Nell struggling to sit up, her heart racing. She put out a hand to switch on the light but encountered nothing but air. With a sigh, she remembered they'd decided the bedside lamps could wait until tomorrow and lowered her hand until she touched the cool surface of the bedside table, then hunted around until she found her iPhone and selected the torch app. The light was harsh but between that and the cool air after the warmth of the covers, it was enough to shake the last remnants of sleep from her brain.

"Is everything okay, Chloe?" Nell asked urgently.

The combination of light, movement, and voices dragged Eric into wakefulness. He surveyed the scene blearily, taking in the downcast figure of Bethany standing next to Nell's pillow, with what looked like tear tracks marking her cheeks.

"Can I sleep with you?" Bethany's voice was small and she addressed the second half of her sentence to the floor. "I got scared when I woke up and I didn't know where I was and – and – I thought you'd gone."

Beside him, Nell reached out a hand to Bethany, tipping her chin up gently. "Of course you can sleep here Little One, there's lots of room."

Bethany's smile at Nell's soft words was radiant, even as her shoulders sagged with relief.

"Climb up, Munchkin, you can have the middle," Eric agreed with a yawn, watching as Nell struggled to pull her up and over her. He hadn't thought the bed was that high off the ground when he'd gotten into it but he also wasn't three-and-a-half-inches short of four-foot-tall.

Eric half-remembered hearing parenting advice about not letting older children sleep with you because it reinforced dependence rather than teaching resilience. The advisor, Eric thought ruefully, had clearly never been assigned as temporary guardian to a traumatized but incredibly intelligent six-year-old. He'd also bet that person hadn't ever tried sleeping in the same bed as their best friend who they were pretending to be married to in public but had to act like they weren't really head-over-heels in love with whenever they were in private. Getting to _almost have_ the kind of domestic intimacy with her he'd always dreamed of with her? Way harder to wrap his mind around than he'd expected. At least with Bethany in the bed between them he wasn't lying awake, longing to have the right to wrap his arms around her so they could sleep curled up together. He knew it was stupid to hold out any kind of hope that maybe she might one day look his way and see more than just a colleague. But the thing was, he also knew how much everything about this operation scares Nell. It had taken _months_ to get her to let down her walls just enough for her to be willing to talk to him outside work let alone consider him a friend. And that friendship means the world to him. The fact he'd developed romantic feelings for her? That was entirely on him. Which is why he'd defend their friendship against every force in this universe – including his own romantic feelings for her. Whatever came next, his first priority was getting both his girls home safe.

Which meant the best thing he could do was to stop obsessing over Nell and start figuring out how to rig up some kind of monitor for Bethany's room that wasn't super creepy and stalkerish. They got alerts on their phones if anyone tried to open a window or door to the outside or even just entered the yard but right now they had nothing to tell them if Bethany needed them. Most parents had months of crying to train them into waking at the slightest sound and Eric was certain that none of the rest of the team would have missed any movement in the entire house but he and Nell weren't trained to be that paranoid. They'd checked Bethany was sleeping soundly and gone to bed secure in the knowledge the state-of-the-art sensors would alert them of any danger from the outside.

By the time Eric had finally calmed down enough to get back to sleep, he knew exactly what kind of system he needed to install. He'd get on that first thing tomorrow. Well, maybe not the first thing because this whole parenting thing was way more of an on-call-24-hours-a-day kind of job than he'd expected but _definitely_ before bedtime.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Nell awoke huddled on one side of the bed, the side closest to the door.

Cracking an eyelid open she was surprised; not only by the unusual view of a window seat with bright light peaking out around the floral but light-resistant curtains, which meant she was definitely not at home but also by realizing she was alone. At home she would have woken up in the middle of the bed and being alone would have been exactly the way it should have been. But here, she wasn't meant to be alone. When she'd gone to sleep there had been not one but two other people here with her.

The momentary panic, which she hoped was normal for all new parents, was broken by the sudden sound of laughter coming from somewhere inside the house. With a sigh of relief, Nell recognized not only the higher tones of Bethany's giggles but also Eric's familiar laugh. They were okay. No one had broken into the house and murdered or kidnapped either of them.

On that happy thought, Nell tried to convince herself that, rather than just going back to sleep, she should actually A) figure out what time it was and B) get up regardless. Her opportunity to get up, find a towel, and have a shower before hunting out the others disappeared with a clatter of running feet and the door being thrown open by a very excited Bethany.

"I made you breakfast! There's even pan-cakes! Well, actually Dad made you breakfast, but I helped," Bethany said in a rush as Nell helped her climb up and over Nell into the middle of the bed.

Nell couldn't help but smile back at the look of sheer delight on Bethany's face and the gorgeous way she not only made pancakes into two words but had referred to Eric, who'd just reached the door, as Dad.

It'd been a tough call to ask Bethany to call them Mom and Dad so soon after her own parents died but she'd accepted their story that this was a game and because something bad had happened to her parents they needed to pretend they were a family until the bad people were caught. Nate, who'd been consulted via video link and had quite a chat with Bethany, thought that her acceptance of Eric and Nell so quickly had to do with a denial of reality and that she had, for all intents and purposes, already started thinking of them as her parents anyway - kind of like a motherless animal bonding with whoever fed and cared for them, regardless of species. He'd concluded this process wouldn't actually hurt her and would probably give her a bit of normality while she tried to process what had actually happened but had left a number to call if things started to look like they were going pear-shaped. He had, however, cautioned Eric and Nell that it wasn't going to be easy, for any of them, when the game came to an end and they had to go back to the real world.

Eric, whose smile had increased by 100 watts on hearing Bethany call him Dad, swept into the room and deposited the enormous tray on the bed with a flourish.

"Ladies, I bring you the most delicious breakfast you'll ever eat."

Despite wanting to laugh at Eric's antics; having tried the blueberry pancakes, the lightly toasted pastries and been offered a top up on an already excellent coffee, not to mention having yet to put a single toe out of bed and a pair of laughing chefs to share it with, Nell was quite happy to admit this really was the best breakfast ever.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

It was much later that afternoon when Nell was finally able to escape parent duties long enough to go down to the Den and check-in with Ops. She was excited at the prospect of getting to speak to the team this time. She and Eric had gotten everything set up late the night before. They'd had a chance to check in briefly with Hetty and the techs running Ops in their absence, but the rest of the team had long since gone home for the night.

Surely the team had found a link between Bethany's parents and something that would explain why they'd been murdered. Why, after their deaths, inquiries had been made at Bethany's school about her whereabouts. The person who answered the call had been too vague to remember anything in particular, just that it seemed odd. The final straw had been the kidnapping attempt of a little girl who looked very similar to Bethany outside Bethany's school, that had sent NCIS Office of Special Projects on high alert. Safe houses had been discussed but given that NCIS staff had been gunned down in their home and the father possibly tortured, Hetty hadn't been prepared to discount the possibility that there was someone inside NCIS was involved. Which is how Eric, Nell, and Bethany ended up being sent to Bakersfield.

It felt weird, checking in with Ops without Eric but Bethany still held the monopoly on his time and they were very reluctant to let her out of their sight for too long.

Then again, the two of them being out of ops when the whole rest of the team were on site was weird full stop.

"Miss Jones, it's a pleasure to see you again," Hetty said, her voice preceding the image as the call was connecting. Around her stood Callen, Sam, Kensi, and Deeks.

"I imagine you don't have too much time so we'll skip the pleasantries and jump into what we've found out so far," Hetty said, forstalling the questions burning at the tips of Kensi and Deeks' tongues. "Mr. Hanna, if you would start."

"Callen and I spent the day at Bethany's house, trying to figure out exactly what happened. As you can see…" Sam stopped speaking to focus on the tablet he was holding, his stabbing and flicking motions getting more and more violent.

"What Sam is trying _and failing to do_ is put up the pictures we took at the house," Callen cut in. "The house had been ransacked and then stripped of anything even remotely technological, which had made local police initially think it was a robbery gone bad."

"But we don't think so," Sam added, finally giving up and handing the tablet to a beleaguered-looking tech who immediately put up the photos, earning him a glare from Sam.

"We think they were pros looking for one specific thing, then creating all the mess and staging the thefts of things like the TV to make it seem like a robbery."

"I mean look at these photos." Sam pointed, to one set of photos showing how each seam of the sofa sliced with surgical accuracy, the insides searched but then replaced and tucked back together as though untouched. Then to another set of photos showing the chaos of the emptied drawers in the bedroom and books pulled off the bookshelf in the living room.

"Either two different sets of people broke into the place or the first crew tried to disguise their real purpose. There's no other explanation. Everything large enough to hide a folded piece of A4 paper had been dissected, searched, and carefully rearranged to conceal that fact."

"Callen spotted the pattern first, looking from the entrance to the living room he saw that there was order in the areas of destruction. Every time something had been dumped on the floor or blatantly hacked to pieces it was the first thing you saw when you walked into the room. Not just because your eye was drawn to the destruction, but also because it literally blocked either your entry to the room or your line of sight."

"Working on the theory that anything which had been dumped could be counted as a distraction only, we boxed up the debris and looked at what we had left," Callen said moving the photos around to make way for the ones that didn't feature wanton destruction. "That's when we started to see the true pattern emerging."

"A set of smashed plates and the contents of a kitchen drawer disguised this section of linoleum that had been removed and replaced. These coats pulled out of the cupboard in the hall? They covered a poorly re-packed box of old-fashioned VHS cases, which when opened, turned out to all be empty. These desk drawers were left hanging open, their contents overflowing. They disguised signs of tampering on the locked bottom drawer which had been neatly closed and relocked but was empty when we opened it despite patterns in the dust suggesting it had previously contained hanging files."

"But it was when we moved the cascade of books in the living room that things got really interesting," Sam said picking out and putting the before and after photos up side by side.

"Is that blood spatter?" Nell asked, peering closer.

"We think at least one of Bethany's parents was shot here in the living room before being taken outside," Callen said grimly. "We suspect it was the husband, who took a bullet to the left knee shortly before the one between the eyes."

Nell felt a chill run down her spine as she looked between the photos and the expressions on Sam and Callen's faces.

"Whoever these people are, they're dangerous," Sam said, "ruthless, organized, and clever enough to try to throw us off their track."

"You and Eric need to be careful, Miss Jones. It seems like they didn't find what they're looking for, which means they're likely to still be searching for Bethany."

"I'll speak to Eric about it tonight," Nell said trying to fight down a wave of apprehension.

"Miss Blye?"

"Right, Um. Deeks and I have been wading through the reports. Reports written by or including mention of either of Bethany's parents. You know of course that they worked at the Mission in fairly low-level analyst positions."

"We're trying to pick up clues about which people or organizations they would have had enough information about to be targeted for. So far, it's a _very_ short list," Deeks chipped in. "Bethany's mother, Samantha Hayes specialized in cryptography. Her father, Craig, worked mostly in the secondary tech team up in Ops when you guys needed around-the-clock monitoring. That at least explains how Eric remembered him mentioning his daughter Bethany on one of their long hauls. According to people around the office who knew them, you couldn't find two more ordinary people. All they really seemed to care about was their work and their daughter."

"You'll be pleased to know that people's memories of basic information like her name and what she looks like are sketchy at best. Some of the answers we got were wildly inaccurate. The closest anyone got to Bethany was one woman who was certain her name was Elizabeth. Proving my theory about how little attention is paid to our colleagues' personal lives – correct!" Kensi said with a flourish.

"I, however, have collected a list of the employees. As soon as you or Mr. Beale are back Nell, I want to know if they're as inaccurate and unobservant in the rest of their work."

"We'll get right on it," Nell said before realizing that could be a while, "whenever we're allowed back in."

"I don't want you digging into any of the information we've given you, I want to make sure that we don't arouse the suspicion of anyone who might be looking for you," Hetty said, preempting Nell's next point about what they could do to help. Which apparently was nothing.

Distantly, the doorbell rang and Nell sighed. She had started to hate that sound since moving to Bakersfield. Swiftly she signed off and went out to meet Eric at the front door.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

.

It had taken far longer to settle Bethany down to sleep than either of them expected, so by the time, Nell had finished recapping everything she'd learned that afternoon from the rest of the team it had been almost midnight.

Mindful of the warning from Hetty and Eric decided to repurpose the program he's written earlier that day after learning that Ronald Reagan Elementary used an identity card system and took photos of each student.

Originally it had been a Trojan designed specifically to prevent anyone outside the school from accessing the student logs and when Chloe's profile was created it would be hidden from all but admin access, showing instead a phony profile that contained an entirely different photo and address not to mention just about every other detail. In the highly unlikely case that anyone picked up the error, it had been done in such a way that it would look like a section of bad code that was swapping out the information.

Eric now strengthened the original protections, setting up alerts that would notify them of anyone trying to access any part of the school's network without permission and created a virtual firewall inside the existing one that would give them at least an hour's warning of any serious attempt to access the school's information. The original firewall could have been destroyed by any low-grade hacker in under three seconds.

Nell meanwhile had created bogus profiles for six-year-old girls starting at a myriad of schools two to five days after Bethany's parents had died, all over California. She used names like Elizabeth and Mary-Beth and variants of Madeleine, which was Bethany's real middle name. If they went looking at the actual school, they'd find an awful lot of little girls with the right first name but none with the right combination of first and last names to match the online profile and none with Bethany's face. Which, on past behavior, would be enough to protect them from whoever was after the real Bethany. Borrowing some of Eric's code she'd made it so that these profiles could only be found by hacking the state system or that school's network. From inside the school's mainframe, there was no record of them. She'd been amazed to find four genuine something-Beths and a Madeleine who'd started in the right week in LA, San Francisco, Long Beach, and San Diego. Nell set up alerts on each girl's profile, making a reminder to take them off when the case was done so that they'd at least know if anyone went looking for those girls by mistake.

With those meager protections in place, Eric and Nell made their way up to bed, each steeling themselves to face another night of sticking strictly to their side.


	4. Looking for a Bird's-Eye View

**Chapter 4: Looking for a Bird's-Eye View**

.

**. .:. .. .: Ronald Reagan Elementary, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

.

"On your right, you'll be able to see the general classrooms for our youngest members of the school..."

With Bethany's little handheld tight in hers, Nell tried to focus on what the principal was telling them as they followed him down the main hallway of Ronald Reagan Elementary. To his credit the school _was_ exceptional, the classrooms they could see glimpses of on either side were modern and the teachers animated. The only problem with the tour was that they already knew every possible fact about the school and had done a virtual walk-through based on camera feeds they had rigged all around the school. She was quite happy pretending like she was seeing all of this for the first time but while Bethany had skipped along between Eric and Nell on the way here, now she was dragging her little white shoes like they were made of lead rather than leather.

Glancing up, Nell meet Eric's eyes over Bethany's head - so he'd noticed too.

Eric raised an eyebrow, nodded to Bethany, and tipped his chin up - silently asking _'Should I pick her up? Put her up on my shoulders?'_

With little more than a flick of her eyes to the principal and a tilt of her head, she shot back _'Think he'll have an issue with it? She's probably expected to walk on her own.'_

The slight hitch of one shoulder and the beginnings of the grin he got whenever they went close to pushing the boundaries had Nell smiling in reply – Mr. Mather's rules had nothing on Hetty's. With a nod, she set out to orchestrate the necessary stop. They were just approaching an intersection of hallways.

"Mr. Mathers, just a moment - " Nell interrupted, realizing belatedly she probably should have paused a moment to re-catch the thread of the principal's monologue which had been going in one ear and out the other.

"Yes, Mrs. Whitman?" The principal turned, smoothly transitioning from monologue to dialogue while keeping the upper hand. They had stopped almost exactly in the middle of the junction between hallways.

Glad she'd memorized the floor plan, Nell motioned left knowing full well what she wanted was in fact to the right. "Would it be this way to get to the science classrooms? I know Chloe would especially like to see those, Marc - my husband - is an environmental scientist you see."

"You have science rooms?" Chloe piped up, innocent to the scheme but playing her part beautifully.

"We have three laboratory spaces," Mr. Mathers began grandly, ready to set off in a new direction if it meant a little more interest from the group, "and you’re almost correct Mrs. Whitman but to your _right,_ now if we just take this junction - _"_

"Is it far? My feet are tired," Bethany cut in plaintively, tugging on the hands of Eric and Nell which she gripped tightly in her own, keeping them strung together in a little line.

Biting back a smile that Bethany was doing exactly what Nell had been trying to arrange, all without premeditation, Nell kept quiet. She was used to communicating silently with Eric but there was something incredibly amusing about the three of them ganging up on the principal without him being any the wiser. She felt like there should be high fives all around once his back was turned again.

"Well, it's not _very_ far young lady -" Mr. Mathers began, his tone kindly but clearly about to follow up with the firm 'march on' orders.

"Are those new shoes hurting your feet, Munchkin?" Eric asked quickly, crouching down next to Bethany. "How about I put you up on my shoulders ‘till we get to the science rooms and we'll see if that's enough rest for them?"

The smile and bubbling laughter more than compensated for Nell's hand being ditched in the rush to accept what had become one of Bethany's favorite past times.

"Well, I don't–" Mr. Mathers tried to get a word in over Bethany's excited chatter but seemed to realize compromise was his only real option with Bethany already being lifted up onto Eric's shoulders. "Well, off we go then. Now the science rooms were built just last year. Really quite advanced, if I do say so myself..."

You had to admire his aplomb, but Nell guessed there wouldn't be much that could faze a principal who'd worked his way up the ranks in some pretty rough schools before getting the top job here, and this way his audience was all too ready to listen. Well, _mostly_ ready. Bethany had just started to whisper (not very quietly) into Eric's ear something about not being able to hold hands from up there.

"And what grade do classes in the science laboratories begin?" Nell asked trying to fill the small gap in the monologue so he wouldn't be as aware of Bethany's chattering.

"We believe," Mr. Mathers began, using the royal 'we' when it was almost certainly his idea, "that an introduction to basic science early is part of the reason so many of our students go on to achieve offers for Ivy League Colleges. Except for the Kindergarten, safe and fun basic science is introduced into all the younger grades, while our senior students take on introduction classes to all the mainstream science disciplines to prepare them for middle school."

Nell was impressed, no wonder this school ranked so highly. She was about to say so when Eric, who'd been moving closer and closer in her peripheral vision, wrapped an arm across her shoulders and pulled her gently into his side. Glancing up she met the conspiratorial smiles of her little family. Apparently, if Bethany couldn't hold her hand then Nell needed to be attached to Eric instead, there would be no breaking this chain. Smiling Nell relaxed into Eric's side, looping her arm around his waist to anchor herself in place. If you can't beat them, you may as well enjoy joining them.

Despite the height difference, Nell was surprised to realize she didn't feel dwarfed by the position. If anything, it made her feel more like an equal as both of them made adjustments so they could move as one. She lengthened her stride and Eric shortened his until they moved in step as naturally as if they'd always done it. In a way, she guessed they had been developing a similar pace for the past couple of years, just never before with the added challenge of actually being joined at the hip. What shocked her the most was that she didn’t feel trapped by the gesture. She wasn’t fighting the urge to reassert her independence, to take control of the conversation, and regain some emotional distance by creating some more personal space. Stranger still, she kind of likes it.

She was content to let Eric take over talking to Mr. Mathers, allowing Nell to admire how much more confident he’d become since starting this charade. She envied how easily he'd slipped into the role of father and husband. It was funny how easily his awkward and offbeat jokes were somehow completely accepted now that he was a dad. He still occasionally got himself completely tangled up with words, but it seemed like, not having so much pressure to hide or apologize for his attraction to her had solved most of the problem. Nell found herself relaxing more around him too, not being constantly on guard against compliments and constantly monitoring how much attention she gave him to prevent him from getting the impression she wanted something more than friendship for him. It made Nell wonder if maybe, trying to have something real with Eric wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

They were just about to head back inside for the final part of the tour when Nell got the urgent alert on her phone. They'd programmed their phones so that when they were together all of the alerts came to Nell. Her job at the hospital made it easier to explain why she was suddenly being called away and it also gave them greater scope for encoding their messages in a way that someone casually overhearing them wouldn’t think twice about. Eric could still access them, but they would be waiting in what looked like a second email app rather than in his notifications feed.

The group had paused midsentence at the two-tone beep which cut through the relative quiet of the empty playground like a knife.

"You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Mathers,” Nell said trying to keep calm as she fumbled to get her phone out of her bag. “I work in Resource Management for Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and one of us is always on call."

_._

_1 New Notification_

URGENT: CONTACT PATHOLOGY DEPARTMENT, SUPPORT REQUIRED.

.

If Eric hadn’t been able to read the message himself over her shoulder, she would have told Mr. Mathers that there must be trouble with allocating supplies in the pathology department – making an off-hand comment about how time-sensitive everything was with tissue samples. Apologizing that she would need to go in to help to ensure all of the doctors still received the test results they needed. All of which Eric would understand to mean that their team had picked up a mid-level cyber threat that they needed to know about.

The warning would have read ‘Caution: Radiology’ if something picked up on the security feeds at either their house or the school and ‘Caution: Audiology’ if a bug had been detected. Eric had hijacked the Instagram and Spotify Apps to allow them to check both video and audio feeds from anywhere, the error badge changing to red, orange, or yellow depending on the threat level.

Nell, who'd removed her right arm from Eric's waist to fish out her phone now extended her hand to the principal.

"Thank you so much for the tour, Mr. Mathers. I have to go but I'm sure Marc and Chloe will have plenty of questions for you." His handshake was firm as he wished her a safe and productive return to work.

Nell turned to Bethany next, "Bye Chloe. I'll be home as soon as I'm done at work." A pair of thin arms wrapped vice-like around her middle in a fervent goodbye hug and Nell was sad to see an unusual shininess in Chloe's eyes as she gently kissed her forehead before pulling away.

In light of their audience, Nell reached up to give Eric a swift kiss as well. She'd been aiming for his cheek, but Eric had bent his head down as she stretched up, and somehow, in the confusion, it was his lips that met hers. It was over almost as soon as it had begun but that didn't stop Nell's mind cataloging and filing the sensations away for examination later. Part of her wished she could lean in, clarify the fleeting impression of heat and pressure that lingered on her lips, but logic and circumstance won out.

Trying not to blush, Nell forced herself to take another step back. “I’ll call if it looks like I’ll be stuck at work past dinner.”

Eric meanwhile was trying to camouflage his flaming cheeks with a sudden need to comfort Bethany who’d moved to stand so that she was almost entirely hidden behind him as soon as Nell had pulled away from her hug. Bethany did look incredibly cute with her fingers latched onto his back pocket and just her head poking round so she could still see Nell and the Principal.

"Don't worry Mrs. Whitman, she'll be quite safe here."

Nell flashed a smile at Mr. Mathers, sending a silent thanks that separation anxiety was so unremarkable to an elementary teacher, and with a final, general "Goodbye" she departed.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**  
  


The walk home from school was considerably quicker without Bethany but Nell missed the chatter and excitement that transformed ordinary, everyday things like clouds and people and cars into the props and characters in fairy tales. It was hard, now that she'd gotten into Bethany's favorite game not to invent stories each time she saw something new or different. The postman, after all, could actually be a prince who had been exiled from his kingdom and was working to save enough money to go looking for the rest of his family who'd been separated as they fled the country they lived in. As she neared their house Nell noticed the blind across the street twitch and a shadow recede - the ghost of a little girl? A suburban batman keeping watch?

 _Keeping Watch!_ Cursing her distraction, Nell switched back to NCIS Agent mode, all thoughts of make-believe forced to the back of her mind as the possibilities started clicking into place. If there was one thing that could be said for suburbia it was that Neighborhood Watch was alive and well. The grapevine here was as advanced as some of the intelligence networks Nell analyzed which meant she had to assume that someone would take note that she left the tour early. She was thankful in hindsight that she hadn't said exactly why she needed to leave but it had been implied it was something important at work. Luckily in Resource Management, they could always use an extra hand and there were dozens of potential crises every day ranging from minor to catastrophic. She decided that at most she had 15 minutes before it would be newsworthy, to have "rushed home" and then taken "forever" to get changed and actually go to work. On her side was their decision when they moved in to leave the front bedroom as a "guest room" and take the bedrooms nearer the back of the house which didn't have windows facing the street.

Glad that she'd always been the kind of person that could wake up, dress, grab breakfast and leave the house in well under ten minutes, Nell set about planning her mad dash as she walked calmly up to her front path and unlocked the front door.

As soon as the door closed behind her Nell started the timer on her watch and was rushing down the hall, pulling off her jacket and unbuttoning her shirt as she went. The shoes came off as she passed through the bedroom door and she was pulling on her work shirt and switching jeans for black pants as soon as she reached the chair she was using as a stand for the clothes she wore to work. Grabbing her security tag, upside-down watch, keys, and real pager from the locked drawer and snatching up her incredibly comfortable but unattractive work shoes she dashed the den.

Glancing at her watch (11-minutes-left) Nell shut the door to the den and started the connection to Ops; slipping on her shoes and attaching her work paraphernalia to her belt as it loaded.

"Looks like you're not having any trouble adapting to life as a working mum?"

Nell's eyes snapped back to the screen to see Callen leaning against the Ops Island with his arms crossed, waiting to brief her. Fighting the blush threatening to wash over her Nell opened her mouth for a witty rejoinder but was forestalled by Sam suddenly stepping into her field of vision from somewhere off-screen to the left.

"Suits you. You might want to re-think the hairstyle though, half clipped doesn't quite convey the uber-organized look you've got going on."

"Oh, ah - right."

Nell paused realizing that she'd completely forgotten about the butterfly clip which had gotten tangled when she'd pulled on her work shirt without undoing the buttons. Sighing she got to work untangling. She was constantly irritated by the clip because she kept forgetting the hair extensions that had been a last-minute addition to her cover. Luckily they'd been done by a hairdresser so she couldn't actually take them out and forget to put them back in. But all the reasons why she preferred her pixie cut were being reinforced on an hourly basis.

"So, what have you got for me?” Nell asked as she tried to get the clip out without ripping out half her hair. “I've only got about 9 minutes before I need to be seen exiting the house." An unseen tech set an 8-minute countdown in the top right-hand corner of the screen just as she would have done if she'd been there.

"Right, we'll give you the cliff notes version. You or Eric will check back in tonight?" Callen paused just long enough for Nell to nod before plowing on. "About an hour ago we got a hit on your early warning system; the one that shows searches in school databases. Might be nothing but just before the red flag search was logged, there was an _Internal Search_ at the same school - Tenth Street Elementary in West LA."

"Keywords of the red flag search?" Nell asked, trying not to think of the worst-case scenario.

"Female, grade 1 or 2 and Beth with asterisks."

"And the internal search?"

"The same plus, 'top 10 percentile'."

"Any other flags or just this one school?"

"Just the one," Sam chipped in as Nell fought the urge to pace. It was so frustrating being stuck here and not able to access all the data herself.

"You want to see the log thing?" Callen asked, perceptive as always.

Nell was sure her relief was visible as the screen switched so that Callen and Sam were minimized to just the top left part of the screen and the rest showed the stats she'd been dying to see.

Scanning the log quickly Nell's heart rate started to ease back out of hyperdrive. The keywords for the red flag search had been less aggressive and skillful than the summary suggested. Both searches had actually been denied full results by the system, simply confirming that females in grades 1 & 2 made up 60% of the top 10 percentile in academic achievements, and citing permission from level coordinators was necessary to access full results.

"You've got techs running down the IP address?" Nell asked, aware a full minute had been spent breaking down what she could see.

"Came from the public library just next to the school, Kensi and Deeks are headed there now but the techs say there's almost no chance they'd still be there. We're hoping they at least pick up a few possible IDs to track down, people leaving in a hurry after the searches."

Sighing, Nell had to agree, no one would stick around after two failed attempts. Conscious that she and Callen seemed to have swapped roles temporarily and that he was expecting instructions from her, Nell did her best to gather her thoughts. As nice as it was to have a break from spending every minute with Eric, she missed having him to bounce ideas off, not to mention the ebb and flow of finishing each other's sentences.

"We'll run a full check on the system from this end tonight. For now, we'll treat it as a low-level threat to us, but we’ll just have to wait for that update from Kensi and Deeks. It wasn’t a highly skilled or well-planned attack and that should give us the advantage."

"Right. We'll keep working other angles then if you're sure there’s nothing else you need us to dig into on this?" Callen said, pushing off the island, ready to move out.

"No, I think we may have just gotten lucky this time. It seems like they hadn't anticipated even that small level of resistance to their hack, so we've gotten a peek at their game plan, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve gained anything."

"Time for you to go to work then, show the local folk how to run an op," Callen said with a sardonic smile.

"You watch your backs all the same," Sam threw in as the clock at the top of the screen flashed orange, the countdown hitting 60 seconds.

And then, they were gone.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Nell noticed the curtain flick as she reversed out of the driveway and wondered what Miranda across the street would have to say about their little family.

She was willing to bet at least one of her "darling" neighbors had been trying to figure out how old she was based on Chloe being eight despite the combined efforts of Hetty and Kensi. It had been Kensi who'd hit on the brilliant idea of basing her cover identity’s outfits on the photos of her older sister who somehow managed to look 28 despite her petite frame. Out went all of Nell's favorite little dresses, cardigans, and flats, and into the suitcases went jeans, tailored pants, shirts, and sundresses. But it was the hair extensions, Hetty's stroke of genius, which finally had Nell believing she could pull off pretending to be five-and-a-half years older than she was. So far no one had asked directly, but Nell felt like everyone was just waiting to no longer be considered so new that the women felt they couldn’t ask intrusive questions. Had they asked, Nell was prepared with the story of how she'd fallen pregnant when she was 19 and Chloe had been born just two months before she turned 20. Which skated neatly around all of the obvious legal issues there would be if Nell had given her real age and said she'd had Chloe eight years ago. She was curious about what they would have to say about Eric as well. He too was suffering through having to leave all his own clothes at home. Trading in his beloved board shorts and t-shirts for suits and ties, or at best jeans and a casual shirt was driving him up crazy. The job at Aera Energy had at least gotten the respect of the other guys in the neighborhood straight away. Whereas Nell felt like she was behind already, having apparently never learned the art of carrying on pointless conversations about nothing in particular while always being on the lookout for hidden barbs. But at least she had an ally and friend in Callie who, in contrast to all the other women, seemed completely against all the parading and sucking up, seeming to lead an incredibly normal life as far as Nell could tell. She'd miss her when they had to leave, and she couldn't help hoping they'd have a chance to say goodbye, even though she knew they'd probably just have to move out as quickly and quietly as they’d come. A family emergency perhaps? Rushing off and a few weeks later they'd send someone to pack up the house. People would talk but she and Eric were already planting subtle seeds about Marc's father being very ill and the question of who'd run the family business when the inevitable happened.

Her musings got her as far as the front entrance of Bakersfield Memorial Hospital before the tightly wound energy and constant action of the busy Accident & Emergency Department drowned out her thoughts. Moving through the ordered chaos towards the wards and beyond that the control center she worked in, Nell could already see multiple patients on gurneys stuck halfway between the wards and the A&E waiting to be allocated a more permanent bed. As she pushed open the heavy doors and walked on down the long corridor she quickly realized why they were waiting, a ten-bed ward that normally housed overflow was dark and abandoned. With renewed energy Nell made for the control center, they may not have put out an urgent alert but it looked like they could definitely use another hand. Somehow she didn't think she'd be home much before dinner time and wished belatedly she'd had a chance to grab lunch on her way out of the house - once she took up her desk it was quite similar to ops in that whole swaths of time could disappear irrespective of conventions like mealtimes.

But she'd make sure she was home for dinner, which was one time she and Eric tried to keep as normal as they could. After years of working at NCIS Office of Special Projects it had been strange for both of them to always be home and eating dinner by 6.30 pm but now, not only was she starting to get hungry about 6 pm but she looked forward to it and to them spending time together as a family.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

"It was weird, right, being back in the hallways of a school."

Eric's words broke the comfortable silence that had descended over the room they'd started to think of as The Library. Calling it a room was probably a stretch, it was a semi-partitioned off nook just a short way past the breakfast bar which formed the outer border of the large kitchen. Most likely it had been intended as a traditional breakfast nook but had taken on a new role at some point after the kitchen had been remodeled. The wall had been extended to cover all except a door-sized gap and bookshelves had been built-in on three sides, the remaining side having been cleverly fitted out with a couch, where Eric and Nell now lounged, after-Bethany's-bedtime-coffee in hand.

She was surprised in a way, that he'd mentioned it. They hadn't spoken much while they'd taken the various tours, met with the requisite staff, and been taken to see Bethany's new class in action. Well, they had asked every question they could think of which might relate to Bethany's schooling but there'd been no discussion of how it had affected either of them to be back there. But they'd both known the other was on edge.

"Yeah, it was," Nell admitted warily, the temptation to fall back into the habit of subtly rubbing her right upper incisor against its lower counterpart surprisingly strong, even after all this time. It had been an unconscious way of controlling her agitation through the early years of school up until a dentist had explained she'd worn the point off both teeth and given the placement of the teeth, it was probably emotional stress, not genuine Bruxism. Rather than a splint, he'd suggested a psychologist. Her mother had been incensed, Nell had been offered a new dentist and told, as gently as possible, that her mother would always listen if she needed. Nell, being pragmatic even at thirteen, opted to keep the dentist seeing he obviously wasn’t interested in prescribing expensive things that weren’t needed and she hadn't had high hopes for the psychologist but had decided to go all the same.

"I never really felt like I could answer the question of whether I liked school truthfully. I enjoyed the work, the new things I'd never even considered before but I can't say I would have missed anyone except the occasional brilliant teacher if I'd had to leave before I finished. I had friends but often that was more out of convenience than anything else. You needed a group, so I went and found one," Eric continued his apathy just a touch affected.

"I was there to learn and I'm afraid I didn't have much time for the dramas which seemed to monopolize the rest of the students." The matter-of-fact mantra she'd learned to live by came out almost automatically, having lost none of its bluntness in the intervening years.

Eric's raised eyebrow had a slight blush rising on her cheeks. He knew a stonewall when he heard one but he didn't push. She was glad he hadn't made the all too common allusion to Hermione, she loved and identified with the character but it was rarely meant as a compliment. Reminding herself, this was Eric, she tried again.

"I pretty much knew from the outset that I didn't fit in. I could do things other kids weren't up to yet, I answered too many questions, I started to use words they didn't understand - and I just didn't like the things they expected me to." Nell paused for a mouthful of coffee, some of the old tension starting to build behind her eyes, the migraines which had plagued her in high school apparently not as far gone as she'd assumed. It seemed easier to address the next part to her coffee mug.

"Later they let me take classes above my level but to help me fit in better, the careers woman decided that while I was going to do a year's work per semester in most classes I would stay in the lower class all year. It meant answering questions aloud which were completely different to what I actually spent the class doing and even the most distracted class members noticed my papers never looked the same as theirs when it was time to do the tests."

"But you got out early, right?" Eric's asked quietly. His hand, which had been hovering tentatively just shy of her shoulder, compromised by resting on the couch close enough for her to feel the heat but with just his thumb crossing the border, tracing mesmerizingly soft strokes back and forth across her skin.

Nell tried to hang on to the agitation of her memories, to keep up that barrier which protected her from the world but the anxiety was dulled further and further with each gentle stroke, and the memories she usually can't bear anyone to know about seem to _want_ to be shared. That tiny patch of skin that keeps them connected soothing scars that never really healed.

"Yeah, I did finals just after my sixteenth birthday." She's surprised to find she can look into his eyes and continue. "It should have felt like I'd been set free but by then I was so focused on getting through College, on getting into the workforce because there, surely no one would ask why my birth date was wrong. No one would question whether my timetable had been switched, no one would care whether I could do things they couldn't - they would have employed me _because_ I could do them. Looking back it made me the perfect intelligence recruit; very few close friends, no desire to be part of the broader community, introspective -"

"Highly intelligent -" Eric's soft words cut into her cold, rational explanation and went on overriding it gaining assurance despite remaining soft, " - motivated, perceptive. Being dislocated or sidelined, made you easier to convince but they don't recruit people without genuine talent into intelligence. Some other fields - definitely, but not intelligence. They would have tried to recruit _you_ even if you were the most well-known person on campus."

Telling herself that what Eric had said was no different from anyone else pointing it out, that they were just facts, didn't dampen the warm glow his words had produced. Compliments from Eric were often sweeter because they generally started out backward (no one was exactly keen to be called dislocated from society) and then went so far beyond the generic to compensate.

"Once I had the intelligence work to focus on, well - I guess it just moved the goalposts. I found this place where they wanted me to be different and would push me to not just use what I already understood but figure out what I didn't know and how to learn it. It felt like -" Nell paused, already having exposed more of her vulnerabilities than she had to anyone ever and reluctant to take that next leap of faith.

"You'd found home?"

"Yeah, it felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be." Nell let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It should have been unnerving to find out that the one thing she'd hoped he'd never see was something he already knew and understood but she couldn't help smiling.

Part of her wanted to stay here, testing this fragile connection that made the past look just that little bit different, to see whether as the night wore on his whole hand would cross that line - if his arm would shift to rest over her shoulders like it had when they were at the school that morning. She wondered whether his hand could make tingles run down her spine the way it had when he'd started to play with her hair earlier in the week. They'd been sitting on a picnic rug watching Bethany slowly start to play with the local kids during their 'meet the neighboring kids' mass play-date at the local park when one of the single dads had gotten particularly over-attentive towards Nell and Eric had set about trying to get him to back off. She was pretty sure he had no idea that she hadn't just been playing along when she'd leaned back against his shoulder and tipped her chin up to give him better access to the mass of tight muscles at the base of her skull. She'd always admired the skill of those hands-on keyboards and working with the delicate circuit boards of the latest trashed device they needed to resuscitate but she didn't think she'd ever be able to look at them quite the same now that she knew they had the power to reduce her to a puddle of mush just by threading their way through her hair.

But, having brought up intelligence work, her mind slowly kicked back into gear. Reluctantly Nell moved to get up off the couch, putting a hand out to take Eric's coffee mug.

"We'd better get started on those systems and I think the team is expecting to hear from us at 9 pm so that only leaves an hour to have an update ready for them."

"I can start setting everything up if you're right to get more coffee and grab the Oreos? I moved them out of the Den and into the pantry when Bethany was playing in the Den earlier, turns out we've got a budding cookie monster on our hands." Eric barely missed a beat although you could see his uncertainty about the sudden change from talking about the past to rushing back to work.

Nell got halfway to the pantry before turning back.

"Wait."

Eric stopped just outside the door to the kitchen and came back.

Acting on impulse Nell crossed the kitchen to stand in front of him. Resting a hand on his shoulder for support and reaching up on her toes, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her lips encountering warm skin and the faintest prickle of his 5 o’clock-shadow - another sensation she knew her lips would struggle to forget.

"Thank-you. I hadn't realized how hard it would be to be back in a school so like the one I went to, but it didn't seem so bad with you there beside me and telling you about it - it felt good." Her words came out softer than they'd been intended as she stepped back and let her hand fall back to her side.

As little as a week ago, she wouldn't in a million years have done something as brash as kissing Eric on the cheek. But somewhere in-between all the casual touches which gave the impression of intimacy, sharing the responsibility of looking after Bethany and sleeping on opposite sides of the same bed each night, she'd lost the warning sign that had always stopped thoughts becoming actions. It wasn't that she'd never considered hugging Eric; it was just never an option to actually do it.

As she watched Eric's tongue slip out to wet suddenly dry lips, she found herself struggling to remember all the reasons why they hadn't and shouldn't ever cross that invisible line.

"Always."

With one word that meant everything and nothing at the same time and a shy smile to match the soft flush that was creeping up his neck, Nell knew they'd never be able to leave here and go back to exactly the way it had been before. She wasn't even sure that going back to that was what she wanted anyway.


	5. Going Round in Circles

**Chapter 5 Going Round in Circles**

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**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

.

"See Deeks, I told you Eric would be there. Now can we please stop with the conspiracies about Nell having murdered him?" Kensi wasn't looking at the screen but turned to face Deeks, obviously sick to death of whatever 'theory' Deeks had been peddling.

"Given what it was like when they first had to share ops, it wasn't that unlikely to get pretty nasty trying to share a house let alone bed -" Deeks wasn't backing down either, he looked like he was ready to start reiterating all his main points. And that was something Nell was incredibly keen _not_ to have to hear. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eric tense at the word 'bed'. This is exactly why they hadn't ever both been on screen here. Well, actually it was more that they needed one person with Bethany always during the day and Eric often had to bring work home to be able to be home for dinner so usually Ops check-ins had been Nell's responsibility but still...

Sam and Callen looked quite happy to stand back and enjoy the show, alternating between looking at the ones with the wedding rings and the ones without. Sam looked downright smug making Nell wonder if he and Callen had a bet going that somehow played into it, she wouldn't put it past either of them.

"Uh - Guys?!" Nell and Eric interrupted in unison, trying hard not to look at one another.

"We're right here -" Eric began before Nell took over, "- and we can hear you."

Kensi and Deeks, despite the fact their argument had been _about_ Eric and Nell looked surprised to be interrupted by them.

"Did you end up getting any possibles for the red flag at the Library in West LA?" Nell asked, barreling on in the hope of permanently scuttling the topic of relations in the Whitman household, especially those involving beds. The rest of the team might prod and joke about that kind of stuff but she wasn't sure she and Eric were really at that stage yet - hell, they were just getting to the point where it felt comfortable and they definitely didn't need Deeks putting them back into defensive mode.

"Nada. Turns out there are three exits to the library, hundreds of people coming and going all the time and all the cameras we malfunctioning for the past two days."

Deeks' account pretty much summed up what Nell and Eric had expected. In all ways except the technology, it had felt quite well planned. The busy location and multiple exits confirmed it.

"So now they know the school firewalls are more impressive than expected, what's their next move?" Eric's question hadn't been aimed at anyone but Callen took it.

"Did anything unusual show up in your system check?"

"Well," Eric started, lifting a shoulder in a noncommittally, "Lots of low-level activity but it's hard to filter out the relevant stuff when it comes to internal searches and there were five separate attempted hacks -"

"- but they just look like kids trying to change grades -" Nell chipped in, their normal habits of only ever speaking in half sentences returning.

"And all of the IPs were traced back to houses with one or more students at the school involved."

"So basically, you've got nothing either?" Deeks chimed in, increasing Nell's impatience with him.

"Well -" Nell tried to think of a single positive thing that had come out of an hour of intense work and failed. They had nothing, just as the rest of the team had nothing.

"So, our crack Ops team have mysteriously become less - uh, crack - and I'm the only one wondering if maybe that's because they're distracted?" Deeks sing-song tone had Nell grinding her teeth in earnest but it was Eric who spoke up.

With a surprisingly quick step forward Eric twisted his tablet so he held it with just one hand and turned on its side so it was pointing like a blade at Deeks. "If you're insinuating that Nell and I aren't working our buts off to solve this case, your wrong. The difference is, we also have a six-year-old to look after and we're both working a second, totally unrelated job so if you expect us to be able to do our same 'crack' work then you'd better stop being an ass and get out there and find us some leads because right now, the only leads we've got to work from come from the system Nell and I created."

Nell felt like cheering as Deeks, Kensi, Callen, and Sam stood in stunned silence at Eric's reprimand. She was ridiculously proud that he'd stood up for her, for them - and there was something sweet about being able to put Deeks in his place for once.

Callen recovered first, his nod acknowledging both of them. "Fair enough. We're missing something -" he looked to Sam, Kensi, and Deeks, “Let's get to work. We'll report back when we've got something new."

Kensi, who'd looked uncomfortable throughout Eric's mini-tirade, nodded too. "Deeks and I will go back to the original files - somewhere there's a link which explains why these people still need Bethany having already killed her parents."

"Sam and I will go back to Bethany's school. We never figured out why, if they wanted Bethany they didn't just take her from there, and if we can figure out that we might know why they shot her father once before the fatal shot."

"Let's do it." For once, Deeks didn't have a suggestive comment to throw out as he and Kensi moved to get back to work.

"I think that boardroom's doing you good, Eric. Just try not to practice on Hetty." Sam's offbeat sense of humor (and the compliment) broke the remaining tension and even Eric had to laugh.

With a chorus of goodbyes and assurances the team at the Mission would be back with some answers, Nell & Eric found themselves alone again.

"Nicely done."

Eric turned at Nell's comment, grinning as their hands met in their customary low-five.

"Deeks was way outta line. Not that you need defending you're perfectly able. I mean you're the one with the gun. Not that he was suggesting that - and it's not like you would actually murder me, right?"

Laughing Nell tried to figure out what to answer first, with Eric there were always so many options when he got nervous and started rambling.

"You know Deeks was just trying to get a rise out of you? But you totally smashed it so it kinda backfired on him. And despite having a gun, and the training to use it - you're still safe with me Wolfram."

Smiling at Eric's stunned expression, Nell went back to packing up the remains of Oreos and coffee. They'd never mentioned that moment at the security firm again but clearly, it was as ingrained in Eric's mind as it was in hers. She hadn't even meant to bring it up; it just slipped out with the mention of her gun and wiped the shyly pleased look right off Eric's face.

"We'd better get to bed then."

"Pardon?" Nell swung back round to face Eric who was now redder than Santa's pants.

"I meant, now that we're all done here we should sleep - uh, that Chloe is asleep and it's late and we're tired so -" Eric, if possible was getting even redder and shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he continued to dig himself into a hole.

"We need to both get some sleep so we'll be ready for Chloe's last day before school?" Nell finally came to his rescue before he accidentally said something he couldn't take back.

"Right. So, uh, if you're good here I'm - I'm going to go check on Chloe."

Biting her lip so she wouldn't succumb to the laughter that was bubbling up inside her, Nell nodded and redoubled her cleaning efforts. After a pause, she heard Eric leave. She wondered what it would be like without all the uncertainty if it was just them and there was no work to do, whether - but there was work and Bethany and she needed to remember that. That she couldn't wonder if this feeling was real. Now was all that mattered.

Sighing, Nell headed for the dishwasher, flicking the den lights off and moving through the dark house towards the kitchen. This was the only place aside from her parents' house that she walked through in the dark. Even though her apartment was tiny she still ended up with a trail of lights following her movements but somehow, already she felt like she knew this place. Brushing her hand lightly along the wall of the passage, Nell thought about her parents and wondered what it would be like to have a home they could come and visit. They'd love that, they were always saying they'd love to see where she lived and Nell was constantly having to put them off – as far as they knew she was renovating a house and that living in a shoe-box size apartment was just temporary. With the GFC and them knowing how hard she worked it was somehow possible that she'd managed to stretch these renovations out to over two years. She'd actually found a house that was being renovated in San Diego and because that family had a Flickr dedicated to their 'Reno Updates' she'd been dolling the pictures out in small portions every couple of months. The real house was finished long ago but Nell would string it out as long as she could. Even though she knew she shouldn't even think it, she wished this house in Bakersfield and Bethany and Eric were hers. Wished that all her family would be able to come to visit, maybe even that she'd be able to host Christmas now her parents were getting older. Even just being able to be with them for Christmas one year - it all felt like so long ago when the concept of not being home for Christmas had been unimaginable.

She used to be the person most excited about Christmas coming, which is saying something in a family that had Christmas sweaters and more Christmas decorations than their ten-foot tree and collection of smaller trees could handle. Each year her mum had made them each a pair of Christmas decorations to go in their collection so that when they moved out they'd have enough to start their own Christmas tree. Every year since she'd missed her first Christmas at nineteen, a package would arrive with two more and a video message from the family.

She hadn't even realized she'd stopped moving until the sound of footsteps behind her broke the hold her memories had on her. Turning she was thankful for the dark as she could feel her eyes had welled up with unshed tears.

"Chloe's asleep but I can take those to the kitchen if you want to go in and say goodnight?"

She didn't know how he knew not to ask why she was still standing in the middle of the hall but the softness of his voice showed that he'd noticed she hadn't just stopped to gaze into space.

"Thanks but - uh, you go have first run at our bathroom. I'll dump these in the kitchen and pop in on Chloe on my way back."

"If you're sure?" Nell could hear the indecision in his voice, even though he didn't press her for answers.

"Yeah, I'm sure - I'll be there soon." And Nell was surprised to realize she actually was okay. Somehow, with nothing more than a question about household things he'd driven away the tears that had been threatening to fall. She hated crying but Christmas was one of those things that tipped her over the edge every single time and usually once she'd started there was no stopping them actually falling.

"Alright, don't linger too long." And with a nod, he reluctantly turned back the way he'd come.

Leaving Nell trying to figure out when he'd gotten to be able to read her so well? And if he could sense that, what else was she no longer able to hide?


	6. The Way the Cookie Crumbles

**Chapter 6: The Way the Cookie Crumbles**

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**. .:. .. .: Safehouse, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

.

Nell was surprised to see Kensi standing alone in Ops when, having confirmed the coast was clear, she found herself on the wrong side of the Ops big screen yet again. It was still strange looking from the position of the big screen, over the Island towards the Ops doors. She wanted to be standing, tablet in hand, on the other side - directing the action rather than playing a starring role.

Having exchanged greetings and Nell had done her best to dodge Kensi's questions about how she was enjoying shaking up with Eric and her instant mother status, Nell got Kensi onto the important stuff. After all, having survived the first week of frequent visits from neighbors and the endless task of entertaining a six-year-old, Nell had learned to value the momentary reprieves but not to count on their duration being great.

"The rest of NCIS Office of Special Projects seem to have swallowed, hook-line-and-sinker that you and Eric have been sent to Washington to assist Vance while Ops is being upgraded with a new security protocol - there was a very complicated email that did explain it better than that. (Nell nodded, she'd written it herself.) They're all crowded into the back-up Ops (Nell winced in sympathy, it was the size of a broom-closet in comparison to the real one) and whatever Eric did to trick them into believing this one is down has kept even the most dedicated and diligent Techs from offering to assist in the upgrade. We've got the two Techs you vetted working here on this case but so far they aren't having much luck."

Nell sighed. This was quite an elaborate setup but she had the feeling behind-the-scenes Hetty had a second game in play. No doubt looking for how anyone could have found out where her staff lived and where their daughter went to school.

"Did they buy the memorial service?" Nell asked, knowing this part was key to the success of keeping the three of them out of danger.

"I've got no idea how Hetty managed to find _three_ small blonde girls of the right age who all had the right hair but looked quite different and stage the sightings at the service and the wake but the three different cars which they appeared to be bundled into by relatives were all followed quite rigorously until they each slipped their tails on separate busy roads. And because we were down to skeleton staff on the day Bethany was here, it was quite easy for the rumor to be spread that had not only was she a brunette and closer to eleven but that she'd been related to Hetty and no-one in their right mind would be heard asking questions about something which was Hetty's."

"Quite right Miss Blye," Hetty said, managing to sneak up on both of them (yet again). The Ops doors hadn't opened, making Nell surmise they must be using the emergency exit which, up until now, had been a secret kept between Hetty and Eric. It had surprised her to discover Eric had kept a secret from her, but she had a feeling he actually thought Hetty had told her and so had seen no reason to break silence on a tightly controlled issue.

Kensi, who'd visibly jumped at Hetty's remark, gave Nell a somewhat agitated look as they waited for Hetty to continue.

"You'll be pleased to hear we're making progress." Hetty began, the pause just a little longer than was normally used between sentences, as though daring the unsuspecting to try and help her along (Nell had, in her early days, fallen foul of that particular technique but today she kept quiet) and Hetty, had indicated she had complete control of the conversation chose then to continue. "Mr. Hana found what is believed to be a blackmail letter late yesterday tucked into one of Bethany's books from school. We're still trying to verify the exact translation of it - you will, I hope, have better luck than the first team - but it seems as though harm against their daughter was being used to motivate them to disclose information."

Nell's heart started racing. She might not be Bethany's biological mother but at some point, during this charade, Bethany had gone from being just part of her work to now being prepared to protect her with her last breath because she didn't want to lose her.

"Callen thinks Bethany may in-fact be safe due to the school bus returning her class from an excursion to the Natural History Museum being delayed over two hours after one of the children wandered off and got lost. Some _genius_ ," Hetty's emphasis implying strong disapproval, "put the rest of the children into a 90-minute film on dinosaurs which, when the lost child had been found, was allowed to run on until its end because they were studying dinosaurs in a few weeks. This put them into the middle of peak school pick-up traffic, which accounts for the trip taking twice as long as it otherwise would have. When the bus returned and _still_ neither parent could be contacted they entrusted Bethany to _another_ mother while they rang the emergency number her parents had listed.” Hetty’s words dripped with disdain. “That call was answered by our cover department. The record that both parents had leftover three hours before, prompted a team to be sent to the family home where both parent's cells listed their last signals had come from. On finding the devastation and the two deceased, I was brought in. It is further surmised that had Bethany returned on time, what happened to her parents may have played out differently. Her parents genuinely didn't know where she was but if she was leverage or indeed the aim of the whole exercise it may have led to their deaths if the perpetrator thought they'd been exposed."

Nell bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. It was terrible to look at the events in that light; where Bethany could have been exchanged for her parents. Nell wanted to believe that, while Bethany's parents were not agents, they would have protected her to their last breaths, perhaps even capitalized on them not being able to find her. But there was something at the edge of her mind, which made her doubt it had been that simple, that Bethany's parents had been completely innocent in the lead up to their attack.

"So where does that leave us?" Nell asked, trying to keep her voice from betraying her all too real fear that, while it was Bethany's parents who'd died, they could no longer claim she wasn't the real target.

"In hiding," Hetty said with her usual abruptness.

"You'll at least let us have the note Sam found?" Nell asked, hating how hard it was to be here and not sitting in her chair at Ops, already starting the cryptanalysis program she'd written.

"Yes, you'll be able to get it from the fancy digital in-tray you set up once we're done here. But I believe you'll need to be thinking about preparing Bethany for her first real day at school tomorrow and making dinner," Hetty said, a lightness tinging her tone as she took in Nell's eagerness to be back in control of at least one element of this case.

Nell sighed. They'd taken a tour of the school, met teachers, spoken to the other parents in the street, and done their best to make Bethany comfortable but tomorrow was D-Day. Monday meant they ran out of excuses to keep her home 'just one more day' and while Bethany had grudgingly coped with Eric going to work last week, Nell had the feeling she wasn't keen on the concept of not being with either of them. Nell had also decided that they'd branch out and have something that wasn't one of their neighbor’s offerings tonight, which meant they needed to actually cook rather than just re-heat their dinner. How Hetty had known they needed to cook tonight was a mystery - like always.

"Deeks and I are chasing down a couple of discrepancies in one of her dad's last reports but nothing solid yet." Kensi offered, re-entering the conversation as Hetty made no move to extend her remark after Nell had clearly resigned herself to not being able to work on the note just yet. "Looks like we'll need to go over the early ones again with a fine-tooth comb, in the report in question there are three discrepancies which seems unusually high -"

There was a red light that clicked on at the top of the TV, next to the inbuilt but well-disguised webcam, which signaled someone was approaching the Den and seven-seconds until the transmission cut out and the tv would return to being just an ordinary tv. Kensi stopped mid-sentence. Nell nodded, slipped her blue-tooth headset out of her ear, and swiftly sat down on the couch she was standing in front of, just as the connection terminated and a program on American Wildlife filled the space where Kensi had been.

The door, which automatically unlocked as soon as the transmission cut, was opened five seconds later by Eric and a morose-looking Bethany.

"You're back early. Did it rain at the park?" Nell asked trying to sound calm while imagining the worst. _Maybe she had a mothering instinct after all?_

"We - uh - had a bit of a problem with a couple of the other kids." Eric sounded uncomfortable but neither he nor Bethany was panicking so she tried to hold in her curiosity while they slowly got to the point.

"Wasn't my fault."

Nell raised her eyebrows at Bethany's belligerence, which was peeking through more now Bethany was settled making Nell wonder if they'd been experiencing a 'honeymoon period'. If that concept even existed with temporary adoption let alone one with this level of façade?

Crossing her arms across her chest Bethany continued, "We were just playing and then He says 'I can't play anymore 'cos they were gonna play Cops and Robbers and I was a girl so I couldn't have a gun like a cop and girls don't do crimes so I couldn't play.' -" Bethany stopped to take a big breath, she seemed to have a thing against pausing and her solution was to talk as fast as she could for as long as each breath lasted then gulp in air before starting again.

Nell bit her lip and tried her hardest not to smile, she had a feeling she knew where this was going.

"So I said 'girls do the best crimes and make the best police 'cos we're smarter and guns can't tell if you a girl or a boy so that was a stupid reason not to let me play’ - "

 _Not exactly what you wanted the new kid on the block to come out with but you had to admire her spunk_ , Nell thought.

"- and he says, 'well you're stupid because girls can't fight and they cry and you have to be able to fight and not cry to be any good at this game' so I shoved him into the bush to see if he'd cry."

Nell's jaw dropped and her eyes flew to Eric's in shock. The argument was the same world over when kids start to differentiate between boys' games and girls' games but shoving this kid into a bush? She hadn't seen that coming.

"Cried like a baby," Bethany added with satisfaction in the moment of silence before Nell managed an answer to the first part.

 _And what, was she supposed to say to that?!_ Nell felt totally out of her depth, and before she had a chance to say anything Eric's took up the tale.

"So the other little boy, Kevin, shoves Chloe but she manages to stay standing and it first it looks like he's just walking away but then he turns and using the distance as a run-up goes in for a tackle - and ends up flat on his back with one slick move from our little ninja. You can imagine the calamity, I seem to have been the only one who actually saw Chloe shove Justin into the bush - the other parents only looked up when Justin started crying, in time to see Kevin attack Chloe."

"Kevin's dad started yelling; first at Justin saying it was his fault for falling over, then at Kevin for trying to hit me -" Bethany added, sounding like she was enjoying the story's retelling.

"So I grabbed Chloe, let Justin's dad apologize for the trouble saying he was sure it was all a misunderstanding -"

"Justin tried to tell his dad that I'd pushed him and he got real angry at Justin for lying -" Bethany cut in again helpfully.

"They were completely ignoring us by then so we left them to it and came home," Eric said looking rather sheepish.

"But I remembered to bring home my jacket like you told me."

Nell sighed. They'd had a pretty good run, almost a whole week without needing to raise their voices let alone apply any kind of disciplinary measures which, if her nieces and nephews could be used as a yardstick, was quite impressive. Her bother looked pleased with making it through a whole meal of peace with his two boys.

"Alright, how about both of you come sit on the couch with me and we'll talk about it," Nell said, hoping she sounded authoritative when she was actually just trying to buy herself some time. Bethany waited till Eric sat down then climbed up onto his lap and Nell wondered whether this was going to turn into her against the two of them but, to her surprise once they were all settled it was Eric who started.

"Now we know that Justin was mean to you today and that he shouldn't have said you weren't allowed to play with them anymore but it's not okay to push people when they make you angry."

"I know -" Bethany sighed, her little shoulders hunching in as she stared down into her lap.

Eric looked at Nell in distress seeing his little girl looking so defeated. With a nod to Eric, Nell put two fingers under Bethany's chin and gently tilted it up so Bethany was looking at her.

"However, what Kevin did was horrid and it's okay to defend yourself. Even though you were angry, once Kevin was on the ground you didn't retaliate -" Nell paused seeing Bethany's face which had been softening, suddenly frown at the word 'retaliate' and remembering that, despite her IQ, she was still six "- you didn't hurt him when he was on the ground."

"That wouldn't be fair, he couldn't fight back," Bethany put in, her expression serious.

"Exactly," Eric said pulling Bethany into a hug. "We don't fight unless we have to - unless someone attacks us or someone needs help and we definitely don't fight if the other person can't fight back."

"Are you going to send me away?" With a sniffle Bethany buried her head in Eric's shirt, her words muffled.

Nell's heart felt like it was being torn apart and looking at Eric she could see he wasn't coping any better. They knew they couldn't say they'd never leave her. They knew this wasn't forever but at some point, it had stopped feeling like an undercover Op and this little girl had started to mean everything to them. And their little girl needed them to say it was all going to be okay, Nell could see her little chest rising and falling unevenly as she tried not to cry. Wishing she could do more, Nell shuffled over so that she could wrap an arm around each of them, making a little family huddle.

"There's nothing, absolutely nothing you could do that would make us send you away for being naughty," Nell whispered, her hand rubbing soothing circles across Bethany's back. She wished she could just leave it there as Bethany's little hand reached out and wound around her neck, holding Nell close. Looking into Eric's eyes, she bit the inside of her cheek hoping the pain would get her through without crying.

"We're still hiding from the bad men, pretending to be Marc and Sally and Chloe to keep you safe but that won't last forever. When it’s safe and the bad men are gone you'll be able to go back to your relatives but if you ever need us, we will always come. Always and forever, if you need us." Nell couldn't stop the single, silent tear that rolled down her cheek.

"And we'll always love you, no matter what," Eric said, drawing them all closer together: Nell's head resting on his shoulder, Bethany's against his chest.

"I love you too," Bethany whispered.

Four simple words could make a heart swell. Could put you on top of the world but this time - this time as Bethany's breaths slowed and her hand slackened as sleep swept in, Nell thought her heart was breaking. She didn't know how much Bethany understood but she envied her peaceful sleep, looking so safe and warm - so trusting that so long as they loved her, everything would be okay. Nell couldn't help thinking of the photos she'd seen of the last people who'd loved Bethany, proof that sometimes love wasn't enough. She couldn't help thinking of Callen and the foster homes and the cold detachment of someone who'd loved and lost so many times without finding a loving family who would make him their own - could these distant relatives really be the loving, caring parents for a young child they barely knew?

"It'll be okay," Eric's soft whisper broke through Nell's despairing thoughts, "we'll make sure nothing bad ever happens to her, I promise."

"I know. It's just -" Nell's reply was barely audible, her throat closing as though blocked by a real lump rather than the grips of fear and grief for the little girl they had wrapped securely in their arms.

"We're not the first to promise."

Nell could feel the energy leaching out of him as he said it, admitting out loud what she'd been too cowardly to finish. Bracing herself she looked up, preparing for the desolation which must be shining in her eyes to be mirrored in his. Instead, she saw a steely determination rising with his incoming breath.

"But they weren't us. They didn't have Hetty, Callen, Sam, Kensi, and Deeks. Between us, we will get to the bottom of this. And I won't let anything to either of you."

Looking into his eyes she could feel her own determination rising, the conviction behind his words posing the challenge needed to reignite hers, the knowledge that if there was something to find they would find it asserting itself. And pride in Eric, not known for his courage, who was stepping forward to meet this head-on without their normal shield of being behind the scenes.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Her dress had been ironed, her shoes shined, her hair braided and adorned with a bow, her books sorted, her bag packed and repacked and now, finally it was time to go.

Nell looked back anxiously at the house as they made their way up the stone path leading from their front door to the sidewalk and wondered what they'd forgotten. There was a GPS tracker sown into Bethany's dress pocket and another in her shoe, she had a silent alarm and a list of emergency contacts, she had money to buy a treat if she wanted something sweet at lunchtime...

Nell tried to calm down and remind herself that she and Eric did this for a living; preparing people to go into new environments with all the tools and backup they needed and they were some of the best in the field too.

For all her worry, Bethany was skipping along between them, full of excitement about learning new things as Eric did his best to remind her that she actually really enjoyed school. He'd found out from her teacher they would be starting to learn about Egypt this week and was busy painting a picture of hot, dry deserts, towering pyramids, kings and queens surrounded by gold and jewels and a language formed out of symbols rather than letters making Bethany's eyes sparkle as she tried to get him to tell her more. Nell knew it would be different when they got to her classroom and she realized that math problems, storytime, and ancient cultures only happened once all the parents had gone to work or home but it didn't stop her joy at being able to return at least one pillar of normality to Bethany's life.

Sure enough, Bethany dug her heels in when she realized it was time to say goodbye. Her lip trembled as Eric knelt to give her a hug.

"I don't have to come to school to learn about Eeegput, not when you already know so much - you could teach me couldn't you? You don't have to go, Daddy, I could go to work with you couldn't I or - or I could go to the hospital with Mom?"

She clung to Eric like a limpet, refusing to let go when he went to pull away - trying desperately to make them stay or take her home. Nell struggled to hold her nerve when it was her turn to be clung to and gently ease away as hot tears rolled down Bethany's cheeks. She forced herself to breathe, running through what Nate had told them about separation anxiety like a chant and trying to make herself positive, calm, and encouraging as they transferred Bethany to the waiting arms of the teaching assistant and promised they'd be back, waiting for her just outside this door when school was over.

.

**. .:. .. .: Safehouse, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

.

"You touch that ring a lot, Sally."

Miranda's silken criticism cut through what had been an exceptionally dull conversation about Helen's son Norman's _excellence_ at - well Nell wasn't actually sure what, she'd tuned out after the fifth minute of not getting to the point despite wading through seemingly endless ineloquent fluff. Instead, Nell had been thinking about Bethany, hoping she was doing okay at school for her first day and hoping she'd finally get a chance to bring Eric up to date on the case tonight having spent the whole evening before with Bethany.

And now she'd been caught.

"No - well, I fidget but doesn't mean anything." Nell wasn't exactly why she'd wound up on the defensive, there was nothing particularly bad in Miranda's comment, but it _felt_ like a leading question. Like she was supposed to confess something about her marriage being in dire straits the way they were always doing in Kensi's favorite Reality Housewives TV or whatever it was called.

"Are things different now Marc's got this high-powered job and Chloe's got new friends? Well of course," Miranda laughed which sounded about as happy as nails scraping down a chalkboard, "You have us now, but is everything okay home Sally?"

 _Seriously?!_ Nell tried to bottle her inner rage. She'd spent eight hours over three separate luncheons and suddenly it all felt like it had been about getting her to this place and time. It was like the classic high school playbook move: befriend the ugly duckling, make them feel part of the group, entrench hierarchy, make them feel safe, and BOOM! humiliate them to maximum effect. Preferably in a place, they've previously felt in control or protected. First, it had been lunch at Helen's place, then Miranda's, and now, with Nell having been forced into hosting, the claws had come out. Too bad she wasn't Sally Whitman and having a husband working at Aera Energy wasn't what she considered 'high powered' nor was she threatened by the idea of her daughter having made friends, she was _happy_ about that like they were meant to be. _Calm Down. You haven't been gushing about how amazing your family is, the way these women do, that's suspicious. No need to go nuclear on them, just pretend to be submissive and it will all be okay._ Nell knew the perfect start to her reply would be to laugh lightly but she couldn't. She just couldn't do it. So, she thought of how surprised Miranda would be if she knew Nell was actually working undercover for the government and managed to smile.

"Oh, that's so sweet of you Miranda. No, no everything's great I just - we're so new and your families are all _so_ interesting I didn't think you'd be interested in something so little as my family."

Nell did her best to tune out to the twittering responses of the women being "interested". If she channeled her inner sarcasm but dressed it in butter-would-melt-in-this-innocence she could almost enjoy this sudden focus on her. _Almost._

"All this talk of how well your kids are doing, well, it just makes me glad we came here. Living in the city, in Fresno - it was great, and I loved working there and Marc loved working there but - we wanted something more. We wanted a strong community and a good, local school for Chloe, so she'll grow up surrounded by excellence." Nell was watching their faces, the glow of self-righteous admiration for living in Grand Lakes Avenue, Bakersfield beaming out of every one of them - except Miranda. Miranda had wanted to stir up trouble and Nell had dodged it; worse she'd gotten all the women on side.

"Is that why you two have waited so long before having another child? Hadn't found your oasis yet? I mean Chloe's nine and your biological clock must be ticking even though you started so early. Just how old were you when you had her?"

_Wow. Not a problem in my marriage? Well, why aren't I just pumping out more kids then? Bringing up my biological clock–that was just low, not even a subtle way to ask my age! Man, I'd love to put this housewitch in her place._

Having mentally ranted Nell felt just that tiny bit calmer, or maybe that was the feel of the warm metal of her wedding band as she turned it on her finger - she really needed to break that habit, or she'd miss it when she had to give it back to Hetty. She was glad now they'd gone to the extent of doing the mental arithmetic necessary to make Sally's birth date feasible with Chloe's being eight. Remembering the 'cross-examination training' she'd had with Kensi pretending to be a housewitch got her the genuine soft laugh she needed right now.

"Oh Miranda, Chloe's only just turned eight. But you know, we _have_ been waiting before having more kids. I mean we weren't scary young when we had Chloe, I was nineteen and Marc was twenty-two when we got pregnant and I was just two months off turning twenty when she was born but we felt like she needed to be our whole world. The first five years we were so busy trying not to screw up this incredible little person we'd created, it really didn't occur to us to have any other kids. Then I went back to study part-time when she started Kindergarten and I finished the degree I'd put on hold back when she was born, midway through the year she started school so we decided to try me working part-time for a few years so we could afford to move somewhere really nice before Chloe got too old - and then, Marc got the job at Aera Energy and we found ourselves packing up the house we'd moved into eight-and-a-half years ago and heading South."

Nell paused to take in a breath. This was so much harder when it wasn't just Kensi. These women were so much scarier than the women from the street where she grew up and it was so much more serious when she had a cover to defend rather than just being able to talk about her real family.

"And that makes you - 27 or is it 28? Not long now till 30 creeps up on you, is it girls?"

Trust Miranda to reduce all their careful planning and rehearsing down to a simple equation about how many eggs were left in her ovaries and that this failure to act undermined her whole character. Nell was glad she'd never been afraid of aging because spending time with Miranda could make anyone paranoid.

There really was only one quick way out of this conversation; she just had to hope she could pull it off. And that she had a chance to explain to Eric before he heard it from someone else. She'd never been the girl whose love life was an open book to her friends but she needed to get Miranda to feel like she'd won an admission seemed like the only option. Nell didn't have to fake the heat that was coloring her cheeks; for once her redhead propensity blush came to her aid. She barely registered the snick of a door being closed as she committed to her act and set the scene for her lies.

"Well, uh with Chloe needing to be in bed so early after all the added excitement of a new school and new friends and Marc being in a more senior role so he can be home for dinner each night - well - we're hoping that soon we'll have news for you all." Placing a hand over her belt buckle, Nell pulled out the last stopper in the charade, "That our family will get a little bigger before this year is out."

For one terrible moment, no one said anything.

They had all turned to stare at something on Nell's left - towards the hallway that leads to the carport. Knowing what she would see and hoping that it was actually a guy holding a gun instead, she turned to look.

Eric stood, briefcase and keys in one hand, flowers in the other as though he'd been frozen in place.

Nell was only vaguely aware of the sudden onslaught of 'Congratulations' and well wishes as the women around her came to life. All she could see was Eric and that goofy grin that just kept growing. She couldn't help smiling back and wishing, just at that moment, they really did have news to share.

She didn't notice Eric dumping everything he was holding on the hall table. All she saw was him coming towards her. Felt him lifting her out of her chair and turning so his back was to the group of gawking women so they didn't have front row seats as he lowered his lips to hers.

Her arms had wound round his neck as he lifted her up and it could have been a pack of hungry lions instead of six nosy housewives in her living room and she probably wouldn't have paid them any more attention. It was a kiss that should have been for show. A kiss between _Sally and Marc_ to seal a lie, that should have been followed up quickly by accepting congratulations and finding a new topic of conversation with minimum gossip potential. It shouldn't have made her head spin. It shouldn't have made her forget who and where they were. It shouldn't have meant anything - but it did.

With his lips making gentle demands and hers answering with demands of their own, the heat she'd gotten hints of flared like wildfire. The first, hesitant brush of Eric's tongue against her lower lip had Nell struggling not to moan in pleasure as she tried to move closer in his arms. When he changed the angle so he could capture that same lip between his and suck gently Nell felt what little restraint she had slip away. Threading her fingers into his hair she used his need for air to slip her tongue inside his mouth, her exploration more insistent than Eric's almost reverent caress. It was oxygen in the end that forced them apart for long enough to remember their guests. To realize they were putting on a show, it just wasn't the one Nell had planned. For a moment Nell looked into Eric's eyes, noticing how the green she loved had become a thin emerald sliver around a wide, dark pupil making them look even more gorgeous. Eric gave her one last, hard kiss before turning and gently setting her feet back on the ground so she was standing in front of him, his right arm still wrapped possessively around her waist. Nell was glad of his arm and being able to subtly lean back against him as she struggled to find her balance and something to say to the women who were watching with undisguised interest and pleasure.

"Are your friends staying to dinner Sal?"

It was an absurd thing to ask given it couldn't have been after three in the afternoon but Eric's husky words had an incredible effect on their guests who were suddenly looking at watches, gathering bags, and offering to show themselves out. If you overlooked all the blatant comments about not wasting any time working on that extra family member, it was by far the most efficient way to clear the house.

Nell made a very unconvincing protest that they were, of course, welcome to stay - as she walked them to the door and even got out of all the fanfare of hugs because Eric still hadn't relinquished his hold on her. They'd declined Miranda's offer to bring Chloe home after dinner at her place but still made no real effort to stop their guests from leaving in haste.

As the door closed and they were alone in the house again, Nell wished she could just turn in his arms and pick up where they left off. Or better still, start over letting their hands roam free now they didn't need to use them to hang on. But it wasn't that simple and one of them needed to pick Chloe up in just under an hour so they had to talk now.

As if he'd sensed her indecision Eric gently turned her to face him and without letting go, gave them both some space.

"Nell, are you okay?"

Nell couldn't help smiling. Despite all the evidence that he'd been just as affected by the unexpected kiss as she had been, his first soft words had been for her. That Nell Jones being okay was more important than why Sally just told all their neighbors they were trying to have another kid when up until today they'd never even had a proper first kiss.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Are you okay Eric?" It felt right to use their real names even though they'd promised they wouldn't say them out loud again till the mission was over.

"Better. I'm better than okay." And for a moment they just stood there and grinned at one another.

"So - we're - uh - giving Chloe a brother or sister - according to the local grapevine?"

Nell tried to think of how to explain that she'd been boxed into a corner when all the conversations seemed so harmless playing them back in her head. And bringing up biological clocks seemed like an even more awkward discussion than the one they were already having.

"It just kinda - "

"Can we skip the next dinner party we get invited to, to keep the rumor alive?"

They both laughed, breaking the hyper-awareness, and somehow, that was enough. They could relax and be them again but Eric kept his arm around her as they turned and headed back into the lounge room.

"We could always turn up terribly late -" Nell suggested, leaning into his side.

"Or at least leave early -"

"Both beat having to sit through a three-hour dinner with that lot."

"Anything would beat a three-hour dinner with that lot."

"Touché."

"Did they at least bring anything good with them? Like a cake?"

Nell gave Eric a gentle shove in the ribs, "You just came home early in case they ate it all."

"Maybe I was coming home early as backup."

"They're housewives, not armed robbers."

"Could have fooled me. Seemed to have you tied in knots."

Nell had to concede he had a point so she deflected, "Didn't I see some flowers?"

"Flowers?" Eric frowned in concentration, "Oh! I totally forgot I got you some flowers."

"Thank-you."

"You haven't seen them yet."

"No, I meant thank-you for being okay with this. It all just happened really fast and I would have called and told you -"

Eric put a finger gently against her lips, "It's okay. If there was a reset button, I'd do it all again."


	7. Ways & Means

**Chapter 7: Ways & Means**

.

**. .:. .. .: Ronald Reagan Elementary, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

.

It's been a long time since she'd wanted to be invisible so that people would stop talking about her. The fact that the last time had also been on the grounds of a school was not helping. She hadn't realized the edgy feeling that made her want to run as fast and as far away as possible could come back after so much time and training. The irony was this time being noticed was all part of the game plan. Her game plan. She just hoped Bethany was quick grabbing her things, the sooner they got out of here the happier she would be.

Then maybe she could find a way to forget all the justifications she kept coming up with about why it would not just be okay but _good_ for their cover if she was to slip her arm around Eric's waist and take that one step closer than the comfortable distance they were currently keeping. The fact that she wanted to close the distance should have set off muted alarm bells, but it didn't. She'd never been a hugger or a holder of hands in her relationships, always enjoying that one tiny element of being a separate entity. It wasn't like she made a big deal out of it if the other person was but she never initiated it. Then again it wasn't like this was the first of the walls she'd discovered didn't apply to Eric. Ever since they'd first sorted out their differences and begun to work as a real team in OPS she'd known she'd need a whole new set of rules to define their friendship by. One of them was not being surprised when she discovered he'd managed to slip past one of the walls that kept everyone else at arm's length. She'd decided quickly it was because, for once, she was up against an intellectual equal and that was one label she wasn't about to review any time soon. Which still left her standing beside him, wanting to reach out to her equal and wishing she at least had a pocket she could put her hand in to deaden the temptation.

**.:.**

It hadn't been until they were almost ready to go that they had considered the implications of almost certainly seeing all the women who they'd just recently ushered out of their house at the school to pick up their children at the same time as they were there picking up Bethany.

Nell had realized it only when Eric had been attempting to bring back a degree of respectability to the hair her fingers had unwittingly disheveled. He'd turned partially away from her so that he could see the hall mirror better and was busy running his own, more systematic fingers through his hair.

"Wait. Let me." Nell stepped forward as he turned but instead of assessing his hair, her fingers reached for the tie around his neck. She was careful in avoiding his eyes but it was almost impossible to untie the silk knot without her fingers brushing against the warm cotton of his shirt.

"Sal - " Eric's words were closer to a groan than a question or warning, making her pause just as she was about to slide his tie out from under his collar.

Nell didn't dare lookup. He might not have said her real name but that didn't stop her heart rate from picking up or her fingers from fumbling at the implication in his tone. Knowing it wasn't the answer either of them wanted and realizing too late that this idea might just be more than either of them could handle, Nell took a deep breath.

"They'll all be at the school." Nell winced; she always seemed to start difficult sentences in the middle when she was flustered. "The women who were here today, I mean, that saw - that think once they left -"

"I still don't -"

"They think we're trying to have another kid. Carte blanche and an hour before school pick up. Keeping those rumors alive - it starts now"

Nell felt as much as heard the breath rush out of Eric's lungs as the realization hit that what had been a joke to break the tension an hour ago, had just become their new reality.

"And we need to look the part," Eric said softly, his hand coming to rest lightly on her waist.

"Like we've made an effort to look right but rushed and missed a couple of things." Nell agreed, trying to ignore the way her breath caught as his gentle tug on her shirt had it sitting just slightly off-center.

It wasn't just her shirt that was slightly off-center by the time they decided they'd doctored enough. Nell felt decidedly off balance by the time she had Eric's top button undone, the second only partly fastened and his collar slightly turned up at the back and that wasn't even counting the strands of hair he'd gently pulled out of her butterfly clip or the precarious angle one of her earrings had been eased into.

Glancing at her watch Nell was shocked to discover only a couple of minutes had passed. They'd still make it in plenty of time if they walked quickly.

.:.

Turned out it was one thing, in the quiet and privacy of your home, to set out to be noticed by a specific group of people. And quite another standing among the small crowd of waiting parents who had nothing better to do than gossip and zero intention of concealing that fact.

"...making up for lost time..."

"...could have been a coincidence but not after that kiss..."

"...earring, collar, _both_ shirts..."

"...almost _nine years..."_

She tried not to listen.

It was all for show. All part of the plan. But it still felt like a serious invasion of privacy. She willed the bell to ring, willed the kids to start rushing out of their respective classrooms. Tried not to remember the gentleness with which Eric had figured out what angle he needed to balance the fishhook at so her earring would stay, as though knocked, partly out of her ear.

Nell kept sneaking glances at his profile, knowing his eyes were focused on the door Bethany would soon be exiting. It wasn't till her third look that she saw it. Just behind his ear, there was a patch of hair that still looked tangled despite Eric's earlier attempts at smoothing it all down. A tiny section of reality in a mirage of carefully planned red herrings. Quickly she looked away, willing herself not to notice anything else. Silently she started to run through the 50 states in order of date of statehood. _Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia-_

"I know you said we want them to talk - I mean to, um, notice but - do they have to talk quite so loudly?" Eric whispered, successfully derailing her train of thought.

Nell wasn't sure how she managed to listen to what Eric was whispering in her ear. His warm breath ghosted across the side of her face and he was so close she would have sworn his lips brushed the shell of her ear as they conveyed their barely audible message.

She was so distracted by it she almost missed the green door opening and the sight of Bethany weaving her way through the sudden rush of kids going in all directions.

 _'Saved by the bell,'_ Nell thought ruefully.

Nell wasn't quite sure if it was Eric who bent down or if Bethany took a flying leap. But either way, suddenly Bethany, bag and all was, settled on Eric's left hip (no small feat when you considered that men's hips rose higher and didn't flare out to create a ledge like women's) and rather than being left out she found herself being tucked into his right side as he started to maneuver them through the growing crowd of four-foot dynamos towards the exit.

"I'm so glad you came. I knew you'd come. Did you know Ancient Egypt were some of the first to have math and complex building techniques and modern medicine - well there was still a belief in magic too but they had their own system of gods and..."

Bethany managed to talk, without allowing so much as a breath's space for input from Nell or Eric the whole way home. They progressed from Ancient Egypt to her teachers, to kids called Stacey and Brian and half-a-dozen others, to the games she'd played at lunchtime, to what materials they had to use in art. Nell had always thought of herself as someone who could absorb any amount of information and put it into an orderly format quickly so she could remember it all and remember what questions she wanted to ask. But the speed and diversity of topics with no segues had even her Mensa quality brain struggling to keep up with the little girl who hadn't even paused for breath when she'd decided she wanted to walk between them rather than be carried, shortly after leaving the school gates.

There was something incredibly endearing about Bethany's insatiability for knowledge. Her excitement bubbled over into skipping steps when she got too involved in what she was telling them. Eric and Nell got to be so attuned with how her mind affected her little legs that they'd be lifting her gently off the ground and setting her down the step ahead before she had a chance to miss the step that would have put her behind them.

Nell couldn't help smiling; Bethany's enthusiasm was infectious. It made Nell wonder when she'd last been that excited about anything. Somehow every single example she could come up with in the last few years revolved around Eric. Her first couple of weeks at NCIS when she'd nearly ruined it all by being unable to control her desire to finish sentences; the first case they'd worked as a real team - she may as well just admit now that seeing Eric each morning in OPS tended to bring out that endless enthusiasm to know and do more. The only difference was that somewhere along the track she'd managed to bottle it up, suppressing it even from herself. Only letting it out in quick smiles and high-fives...and the occasional hug when things got really hairy. Most of the time she figured she was pretty good at hiding it now, even from her family who'd could usually see straight through her. That's not to say Eric couldn't still drive her up the wall and round the bend with some of his more annoying habits. But even his jealous and protective moods tended to bring out quiet smiles once she was finally alone and the initial annoyance passed.

"Cut fruit just tastes better. Can't I have that instead?"

The combination of Bethany's imploring tone and the sharp tug on her hand had Nell realizing that somehow she'd gotten lost in her thoughts between the front door and the kitchen and completely tuned out. Taking a second she replayed the last couple of seconds in her mind. She might not have been concentrating on it but she had heard it. Cut fruit. Right. She hadn't even thought about sorting out afternoon tea, after all, she and Eric had just polished off the last of the selection the neighborhood’s finest had brought with them. It was going to take a lot of getting used to Nell decided if this is what it was going to be like every day after school. She'd never needed a 'Mom' mode before.

"You have a point Munchkin," Eric admitted, looking to Nell.

It wasn't that Eric was saying: you're female you cut the fruit. It was more that he looked to her for approval. They both knew he'd find a way to give Bethany a slice of the moon if she really wanted it. Within the first 24 hours of leaving LA, they'd developed an unspoken system of checking neither of them was unnecessarily indulging or denying Bethany's wishes. They were charged with looking after her, not just making her happy and they'd had the 'we don't want to create a monster' conversation about horror children they'd been unfortunate enough to encounter before they'd even packed up the car for Bakersfield.

 _"_ Alright, you grab your lunch box and any homework out of your bag and go wash your hands and I'll get started on the fruit," Nell said, making a mental note to add fruit to the shopping list. At this point, they were eating more fruit in a day than she'd gotten through in a week.

"I didn't mean you -" Eric said awkwardly as soon as Bethany had raced off for the bathroom.

"I know. But I've got this covered so you may as well grab any work you've brought home and wash your hands too," Nell winked at him as his expression went from awkward to bemused at being given the same instructions as a six-year-old. "We'll try and create a new routine. Make afternoon tea and homework a family thing."

"You're good at this you know."

Eric's soft words caught her by surprise. Looking up in time to see him smile with something akin to pride before he slipped out into the corridor to join Bethany in the bathroom.

Nell smiled as she heard Eric pretend to be _An Inspector of Cleanliness_ , full of mock gruffness and the echoing laughter when Bethany then insisted on being allowed to inspect _his_ hands once he'd washed them. Eric might have been the one to say it but really he was the one who was good at this. Sure, she had a big family and lots of memories to draw on of the tricks her mother had used to wrangle her brother and sisters, but Eric was a true natural.

.:.

She had no idea how they were going to just go back to their lives once this was over. It was making her think that maybe she'd been wrong when she'd replied to Hetty's 'The Talk' with the simple statement that they'd already decided there'd be no regrets. Attraction had always been a factor in their partnership. She’d always been drawn to intelligence and Eric’s mind is brilliant. Even in the first few days of working together, she could see that he cares. He cares so damn much about everything, and it’s just – she wanted to be one of the people he cares about. So, the possibility that one day they'd be pushed to act on this thing between them had always been there. They'd been pretty confident they could make it through unscathed because their partnership meant so much to both of them and neither would pressure one into more than they were ready for.

The only thing they hadn't factored in was the idea that their partnership might not seem like it was complete anymore without a certain little person who couldn't sleep without a bedtime story.

Because she was pretty sure they could go back to their separate apartments, to seeing each other at work and on weekends. It would be different but not impossible. But never being anything more than an occasional visitor, an outsider in Bethany's life? That was getting harder to contemplate with every day that passed.

A tiny, treacherous part of her even wondered if maybe it was taking longer to solve this case because maybe she and Eric weren't ready to give it up. But even as that thought surfaced she knew it wasn't true. The danger was real and none of them ever lost sight of that. She'd make time tonight to start sorting out a plan of action with Eric.

But it could wait till Bethany was safely tucked up in bed and she'd gotten everything sorted for school tomorrow.


	8. Don't Give Up on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Progress is made in the case.

**Chapter 8: Don't Give Up on Me, I'm About to Come Alive**

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**. .:. .. .: Safehouse, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

.

Their coffee was cold, the Oreos long since reduced to crumbs and they'd even resorted to marker pens and butcher's paper for their mind maps but they still didn't have a cohesive plan. Somewhere, there was a missing piece of the puzzle as to why Bethany was a target and it was driving them crazy. It was tempting to blame it on the fact they had so many more resources at their fingertips in OPs and that the distance was impeding their ability to work seamlessly with the rest of the team but Nell's conscience wouldn't let that fly. They'd had three weeks and they couldn't find any new clues to why someone was after a bright six-year-old girl except that her parents worked for NCIS. And if it was about her parents, why the continued effort to find her?

"What about adoption? Has anyone thought to check up on her birth certificate's authenticity?" Eric blurted into the silence.

Nell, who'd been absently rubbing her temple in an ineffective attempt to dull the pounding headache she could feel building behind her eyes felt some of the fatigue slip away. After more than four hours of rehashing old ground looking for anything they'd missed, this was something new. And at this point, she'd take any new angle, no matter how unlikely.

"No, I don't think we ever really considered her not being who we thought she was. Her parents, sure we rechecked their identities multiple times but not whether Bethany was really their child. Are you thinking kidnapping or something less dramatic like scrubbing her past and putting her back into the system under a new identity to be adopted?" Nell asked, discarding her marker and snatching up her tablet as she spoke.

Eric sighed, suddenly looking as tired as Nell felt. "I dunno. It sounds so soap opera-ish when you say it like that. I just wondered if maybe it was her past and that's why her parents come up cleaner than a CSU tech's suit."

"Come on, doesn't matter how crazy it sounds. Any new idea is more than we had before. And how often do we break a case on ideas from left field." Nell said, giving him a gentle shove before turning her attention back to her tablet.

"Right." Eric nodded, "You take the NCIS database, they should have a copy of her birth certificate listed. I'll run a search for major crimes which left female babies as orphans between 2006 and 2007."

After 20 minutes of concerted digging which left no multiple fatality or serious crime unconsidered Eric shook his head in frustration. "There's nothing here except yet another dead end. Everyone's accounted for and -"

"I think I've got something!" Nell broke in, holding her tablet out so he could look at the screen as well. "I ran the hospital where the certificate lists her being born thinking maybe we'd get a break if the hospital had a period of lost records or being closed in 06/07 but her record is there and the hospital was open the day she was born which is when I noticed a little plus symbol next to her birth record. At Bakersfield Memorial in the records program, it separates birth and death record listings from the full medical file to stop the confidential medical history from being accidentally leaked when confirming records. So, I clicked it, and as well as the full details of the birth her file lists her as being part of a study on advanced pediatric development. That study was actually never published, it seems like the funding fell through well before the study was completed but I was able to trace a paper that discusses the interim results as part of a literature review on children aged 4-10 who exhibit signs of having an eidetic memory."

"A photographic memory would explain how she manages to take in so much information yet still sometimes struggles with things like pronunciation," Eric said ruefully, thinking of a couple of times when she'd bested him in games that relied heavily on memory.

"So maybe they want something she remembers? And if so, how do we figure out what it is if she's the only link?" Nell asked, the first excitement of discovery wearing off and pragmatism slipping back in.

"Not the only link. They went after her parents in the first place and it would still make sense that she saw it because they had it. And maybe there's something in all those games she used to play with her dad - manipulating number sequences."

"Hey, Nell can you pull up her Dad's file? That lists IQ, doesn't it? Because judging on the fact he's not on a fast track at work makes me wonder if he's one of the tech's who isn't pushing the upper ranges of IQ despite being very good at his job."

"Yup. Here we go, 108. So just missing out on the 'high average' category. Good call." Nell said grinning for the first time all evening.

"So if you're her dad, of average intelligence and you've got a daughter who is both brilliant and a craver of knowledge related to numbers where do you get the data from? We've run pretty thorough tests on every project they're directly connected to."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't have taken from any project my name's actually on. I'm assuming he would know using actual data, even if it’s something totally innocuous like the algorithms for the parking ID cards, would be considered a breach and at the very least a fireable offense -"

"Maybe that's it! He _thought_ it was irrelevant and it's actually in use somewhere." Nell said in a rush, beaming at Eric. This might actually be the break they needed.

But rather than matching Nell's smile, Eric suddenly looked strained.

"You don't think this is all because of the Bent Protocol I came up with, do you? I mean that's exactly what it was designed to do. To hide information which is highly sensitive in training packages and "decommissioned projects" so they could be tested across the broadest base with almost zero chance of exposure through espionage."

"And it works. Hetty says it’s been the most successful program they've ever implemented for preventing ideas from being stolen in the development and testing phase. The number of security breaches at locations where the systems were tested using the Bent Protocol is the lowest in the country."

"But if her Dad died -"

"We don't know that," Nell said grabbing Eric's hand before he could rake it through his already mussed hair. "Right now, it's just a theory and even if we're right, it's still not anyone's fault. Nobody could predict something like that. Not even you."

It was funny how something so simple, just taking his hand, calmed them both. Arrested their tumbling thoughts and helped them focus like they'd been doing it forever instead of only on this undercover mission. The corners of Eric's lips turned up in the beginning of a smile as he squeezed her hand back and she could see his eyes brighten as the possibilities started turning over in his mind and yet he didn't turn away. If anything Nell would have sworn he moved subtly closer, never breaking eye contact. She tried to tamp down the anticipation that had started fluttering in her stomach the longer he went on looking at her with the crooked beginning of a smile and unmasked admiration. It's not like what she'd said had been designed to flatter. It just was a brilliant system and he was pretty brilliant to have come up with it and so it was totally unfair to blame himself.

"So many possibilities," Eric said softly, "but I think you've cracked it, Nell. This is it."

This time she was sure he moved. His head dropping to closer to hers as he spoke and despite the mundane nature of the words themselves, they weren't just talking about the case anymore. He hadn't called her Partner like they usually did when they were on a roll and there was no victory low-five, just a beautiful intensity that hung between them and -

_Buzzzzzz._

They both jumped and pulled back, their heads turning towards the sound of Eric's vibrating phone. The moment is gone, one instant to the next.

With a sigh Eric reached for his phone, shutting off the silent alarm. "Midnight. We'd better put that call through to the team and get ready for tomorrow. I'm still not used to having to hand everything over at midnight and go back to just being a parent and an office worker until after Bethany's in bed."

"It's definitely different having ops being the second priority, it's almost like a curfew. I have a newfound sympathy for Cinderella! But being here, having Bethany -"

"It grows on you, doesn't it?" Eric finished, the faint smile coming back.

Nodding Nell slid her hand out of his to reach for the TV remote, trying not to notice how cold the plastic felt after the warmth of Eric's hand. For a few minutes, they worked in comfortable silence, each running the routine checks and prepping documents for upload before setting up the call.

"Ready?" Nell asked, knowing he would be. They always managed to stay in sync.

"Aim and Fire," Eric replied, his finger slipping under the one she had hovering over the connect button so that it was his finger she pressed rather than the touch screen but an instant later Hetty was there and Eric's finger was back on his own screen.

"Good morning. I take it you have made some headway?" Hetty said, omniscient as always.

"It's a bit more like an elaborate theory." Eric hedged.

"We need the team to do some pretty deep digging if they're going to verify it but I'm pretty confident we're on the right track." Nell tried to sound as confident as they'd been a few minutes ago but it wasn't quite so solid now that they had to hand the unsubstantiated idea over to Hetty. It was so much easier when they could do all the verification themselves.

"And this theory is?" Hetty's tone was interrogatory.

"Well, we started by checking Bethany's birth records -"

"The clock is ticking Mr. Beale if you're to get any sleep tonight," Hetty interrupted, "so how about we keep it to the essentials."

"Yeah. Um. Right." Eric said nervously before clearing his throat and trying again. "Neither of Bethany's parents shows similar exceptional mental abilities to their daughter and yet somehow her dad was able to provide her with advanced mathematical problems and complex number games."

"Which got us wondering where the data was coming from and it makes sense that he'd consider taking them from work because then he'd also have the solutions. But none of his immediate responsibilities dealt with those kinds of problems," Nell chipped in.

"Besides, at the end of the day, I just can't see how they could appear so clean if they were taking current data. But everyone is exposed to the training materials..."

"The Bent Protocol," Hetty finished grimly.

Nell saw Eric's color leach a shade closer to white as he nodded. She knew that Hetty was watching and for a moment she paused, weighing her options but it didn't change her direction as she took a step.

Standing shoulder-to-upper-arm, hip to mid-thigh Nell offered what physical support she could as she spoke decisively.

"We want the team to run data from old Bent training models, anything which has completed testing and has been put in action which crossed over with the time of training of either of Bethany's parents."

Beside her, Eric tensed, and Nell could practically feel the confidence coming rushing back into him. She tried not to grin as Eric forestalled whatever Hetty had been about to say.

"Focus on anything which had interactive training. We had a few modules that taught techs about running the algorithm programs to generate code which they then put back into the system. Check if there were times when her dad entered the wrong answer in consecutive questions - from memory we set it to three and then the system shunts you back a step to re-learn the last skill. Just possibly that was how all of this started -"

"And he'd be worried about doing it again so he might have taken home one with the workings that show you how it's done and then -" Nell could feel the adrenalin now. She knew how inquisitive Bethany was, how she seemed drawn like a magnet to frowns of concentration and you tended to end up trying to explain your puzzle to her, almost forgetting her age when that beautiful little mind was so logical.

"It would be a most unorthodox breach," Hetty said, her lips pursing as she considered it.

"But that's the whole problem," Eric cut in, "everything about this case is extremely unusual. But it makes a twisted kind of sense."

"Yes Mr. Beale, it does. I'll get the techs here on it immediately and the team will take over first thing. We should have something for you by the time you've gotten Bethany off to bed tomorrow."

"We could -"

"No Eric, you've done your bit and you've got a Directors' meeting in just under seven hours so you'd better both get some rest."

"But -" this time it was Nell who found herself countering Hetty's irrefutable truths. It was just so frustrating to be sent to bed before the job was done.

"Goodnight Miss Jones."

And with that, she was gone.


	9. A Hard Day's Night...

**Chapter 9: A Hard Day's Night...**

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**. .:. .. .: Bakersfield Memorial Hospital :. .. .:. .**

.

With a sigh Nell let her head drop onto her folded hands. It was stupid to get so much comfort out of resting her head on her desk but it had been an incredibly long day already and it was only 5:58 pm which meant she had exactly seventeen minutes before she needed to be home and full of energy to hear about Bethany's day. She decided she deserved the next two minutes as paid rest given that she'd been called in at 6 am on her day off and had to settle for dropping a tired and sulky Bethany off at Callie's house instead of breakfast and a leisurely walk to school. It had taken her all of 20 minutes to avert the disaster (an over-keen intern had accidentally disabled every single tablet in the building's access to the patient information database and patient clinics opened at 7 am) but somehow they'd managed to wheedle a promise to stay until 6 pm out of her because another member of her team had called in sick.

"Sally, I need you to - Oh."

Biting back a groan Nell lifted her head to see the CEO's EA Diana standing in the doorway of her office. In all the time she'd been at Bakersfield Memorial hospital she'd never let her guard down once. Always trying to prove that she was a manager who led by example and worked as hard, if not harder, than the rest of her team, and the one time she took two minutes for herself it had to be the CEO's EA who noticed.

"What time did you start your shift?" Diana demanded, venturing far enough into the room to lean on the inside of the doorframe.

Nell was taken aback, she'd expected a reiteration of a request or at the very least to be told that the CEO needed something, so she'd have to not just wake up but stay on.

"Um. 6 am," Nell said as she tried rapidly to compose herself.

After a swift glance at her designer watch, Diana grinned. "6.01 pm, home time!"

Nell blinked; she'd never seen Diana being even remotely nice before. The woman was more efficient than LED globes and often came across just as harsh. "But -"

"And it's a Thursday, you're not even meant to be here are you?"

"Well, there was an emergency -"

"And someone convinced you to stay and cover Simon's shift."

"Right. But you wanted -"

"Never mind. I'll leave you a note, tomorrow will be fine. After all, technically you could have left a minute ago, so I won't be lying if I said you'd already finished your shift." Diana said, waving away Nell's attempt to protest further.

"Thanks, Diana, it has been a pretty long -" Nell began.

"Is that your little girl? I remember seeing on your file that you had a young family so your shifts would be tailored to school hours where possible." Diana had barely paused to acknowledge Nell's answer before rushing back into speech and pointing to the photo of Bethany and Eric that took pride of place on her cluttered desk.

Nell hoped she didn't look as surprised as she felt. Dianna still had a staccato way of speaking but her tone and demeanor were totally different. Nell realized she hadn't answered yet and hurriedly launched into speech knowing this time she probably only had ten seconds before getting cut off again.

"Yeah, that's Chloe taken just before we moved here."

"Oh, I'm so glad you're human like the rest of us! You're so terribly hard working I did wonder if maybe you weren't real. I was away sick your first week and the amount of quiet progress you'd made getting David to be reasonable about modernizing everyday processes rather than his usual stick-in-the-mud technophobe self was incredible. You didn't seem to have any interest in getting the credit or 'revolutionizing' us all at once, just got things done and somehow David still liked you - I was terrified! He's a great CEO but not known for being good at adapting, it took us two years just to get tablets and he bore a grudge until the quarterly figures showed how much they increased the case clearance rate."

Nell couldn't help smiling at the transformation between working Diana and the woman in front of her who was relaxed and almost overwhelmingly friendly. It felt good to speak to someone at work like a friend rather than a colleague. She hadn't made any friends at the hospital. She'd never been good at making friends quickly and knowing she would be leaving just made it harder.

"She's lovely. Your daughter I mean. You'll have to have lunch with me one day. I feel like I hardly know you despite relying on you to solve all of my toughest problems. How did we live without you?" Diana asked with a laugh. "But right now, you need to get home not listen to me prattle on. C'mon grab your stuff and I'll walk you out."

Nell allowed Diana to hustle her out of her office and was surprised to find herself relaxing as she got used to the compulsive nature of Diana's speech. It made her wonder just how she'd managed to bottle it up for so long around her.

Ten minutes later Nell pulled into their driveway, still grinning from promises for lunch early next week and feeling more positive and awake than she'd been all day. Maybe it wouldn't be impossible to stay awake long enough to hear back from Hetty after all.

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**. .:. .. .: Safehouse, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

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"How about this one Munchkin, can you see a pattern here too?"

Nell paused in the doorway to the kitchen to take in the scene before her, wanting to commit it to memory before joining the fray. Maybe it was silly but she knew they were getting closer to solving the case and she'd never know in advance which day would be the last normal day so she was trying to stock up on the everyday things. And the scene before her was one of her favorites. Homework time.

One of the things she loved about this house was that the kitchen had a breakfast bar on the other side of the main counter and the stovetop and oven were both situated at that corner. It meant whoever's turn it was to cook could still be part of homework time. It was made even easier by both Eric and Nell being adept at reading upside down and the fact that despite being in a higher-grade Bethany's homework sheets still came in size 14 fonts or above. As a budding genius, she didn't usually need the conventional help, they were more necessary to keep her focused and stop her from trying to jump ahead to the final answer without going through the path the sheet dictated.

Teaching her to appreciate the method while the questions were easy and helping her see how a question like that could be scaled up as she got older, showing her the question wasn't stupid, it was just simple. All of that made homework time vital.

Eric had slipped their one-and-only (bright red) apron on over his work clothes and stood at the stove absently stirring a large bubbling pot with a wooden spoon. Except for his suit jacket, which was totally unsuited to cooking, the only concession he'd made was to roll up the sleeves of his oxford up to his elbows. According to Eric ties were 'growing on him' and the longer he left it on the easier it was to put one back on the next morning. More likely it was because he'd taught Bethany how to tie them and she took enormous pride in tying it every morning for him so it tended to stay on until she went to bed. Nell had a sneaking suspicion that Eric could have rationalized wearing a straightjacket if it had made Bethany happy. She'd have to try and sneak a photo, there's no way the team would ever believe her.

Despite stirring with one hand, all of Eric's concentration was directed to where he was pointing to one of ten sheets laid out on the opposite counter in front of Bethany. Looking more closely, seeing Bethany's frown of intense concentration, and re-evaluating what she could see of the ten sheets Nell realized that they weren't homework at all. They couldn't be, not without the large garish pictures or enormous headings she'd come to expect. These sheets were closely packed with small type making Nell reconsider what she'd originally taken to be Eric trying to gently help Bethany see the point of the drawn-out exercises the school sent home. He'd said: 'can you see a _pattern_ here too' could he possibly be testing Bethany's memory, see if he could draw out the particular sequence of numbers which would break the case?

At that second Eric looked up and saw her. In his sheepish grin was her answer. But that would have to wait because Bethany, sensing Eric's distraction had turned in her seat and spotted Nell.

"Mommy's home!" The battle cry barely preceded the two little arms that wrapped around Nell's waist and it was only familiarity with Bethany's tactics that had saved Nell from having to reach out to the wall for support as 45lbs of endless enthusiasm barreled into her.

"You got me," Nell said with a grin leaning down to put a kiss on her forehead.

"Squish hug!" Nell looked up at the sound of Eric's voice behind her giving her half a second's warning before he stepped in close and wrapped his long arms around both of them pulling Bethany in closer so Nell was sandwiched between them.

It was a move that was guaranteed to make Bethany squeal with laughter, revved up by Eric's mock ferocity in announcing the ambush and it was pretty hard to resist joining in when squashed between them. Playing along Nell squirmed giving her enough space to reach down and tickle Bethany, the only known way to disconnect her favorite limpet. But Eric had outfoxed her, giving her only a moment's respite to enjoy Bethany's giggles before finding herself the victim of a tickle attack.

Eric had both Bethany and Nell gasping out protests in between bouts of hysteria before he relented.

"Last one to the dining room has to set the table!" Eric shouted as he gently pushed past them as they collapsed exhausted against the wall.

Grinning Nell swung Bethany up into her arms, "You're on!"

Sprinting for all she was worth Nell caught him and ducked in front just as he was nearing the dining-room door. With one foot over the threshold, Nell spun to face him, blocking his path.

"Guess you'd better grab the cutlery then, oh and you may as we'll serve up if dinner's ready," Nell said sweetly motioning towards the kitchen with her head.

"You tricked me!" Eric protested, trying to smother his smile at the defiant look on his two girls' faces.

"You tried to make sure we'd lose by tickling us," Bethany replied indignantly.

Eric's shoulders slumped in exaggerated defeat, "I guess I'll just have to do all the hard work myself then. Carrying all those plates and cups and knives and forks. It's gonna take ages if I do it all by myself - the food might even get cold!"

"I'll help you, daddy," Bethany offered swiftly, scrambling out of Nell's arms and putting her little hand into Eric's. "We can't let it get cold, I'm starving!"

Eric winked at Nell's raised eyebrows, pausing just long enough to whisper, "There's gin and tonic all set up in there if you want to start with that or a glass of wine while we sort out the main course." Before allowing Bethany to hustle him towards the kitchen.

Nell could only shake her head in amusement as Eric led the ever-chatty Bethany back towards the stove and dinner preparations. Had it all been a ploy so Nell would get a couple of minutes on her own between work and dinner? It was the kind of elaborate game Eric liked to set up for Bethany and he knew from her call that morning that she was expecting a long hard day. Well, either way, she wasn't turning down a few minutes of quiet and a glass of wine if he was offering.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

"Alright Chloe, the table's all cleared so it's time to pack your bag for tomorrow, brush those teeth and get ready for bed. We'll be in to read you your story once we've done the dishes." Nell said as she took the last plate Bethany had so carefully carried in from the dining room.

After a couple of evenings of allowing Bethany to help with all the dishes, they'd discovered that while it was great that she wanted to help out it was faster (and safer for the crockery) to limit her to clearing the table. Besides, they both knew it was more about her wanting to spend more time with them and less time in bed rather than being über keen on dishes.

"I could stay and help put things away," Bethany pleaded, giving her best attempt at a mournful expression.

Eric shook his head, "Sorry Munchkin, it's time to get ready for bed. But you can have a hug first if you like."

Some families used a treat jar or pocket money to help smooth over tasks the children didn't want to do, Bethany's currency of choice was hugs. An extra hug bought you a lot of goodwill and Nell wished for the thousandth time that she could thank Bethany's parents for raising her so well as Eric picked Bethany up, twirling her around before hugging her tight.

"This is Houston speaking, are you ready?" Eric said gravely, relaxing his hold enough that he could look into her eyes.

"Ready!" Bethany giggled.

"Aiming." Eric continued, spinning her around in his arms so she was facing the door, "Ready for lift-off."

"Fire!" They yelled together as Eric swung her down to meet the floor and she was off running to her room as soon as her little feet hit the floor.

Grinning Nell turned to face the sink, going through the motions of running the water, adding detergent, and getting the necessary brushes and sponges out from the cupboard over the sink. She could hear Eric organizing the dishes into piles and stacking them next to the sink in the order they needed to be washed in. From glass, all the way to pots and pans, cleanest to dirtiest. It seemed crazy to say she now enjoyed doing the dishes. But like Bethany, if she was honest what she enjoyed was the extra time it meant she got to spend with Eric winding down after dinner, doing ordinary things before they started on their real work for the day. Nell waited till Eric was ready to take the first clean glass, he'd opted to dry, before asking the questions she'd been dying to know ever since arriving home and finding them hard at work on a mystery task.

"So it looked like Chloe was helping you out with your homework tonight rather than the other way round?" Nell said as casually as she could manage. Peeking sideways in time to see Eric's face flush lightly.

"Well," Eric cleared his throat nervously, "When I realized you wouldn't be home till late I called in a couple of favors. I managed to get the preliminary data that I needed to work on emailed through early and convinced work to let me leave in time for school pick up. Once Chloe's homework was done and dinner was started I asked her if she wanted to give me a hand with some of my work."

"Oh, and how's that working out for you? Is Chloe a budding environmental scientist?" Nell asked playing along with the charade in case of bugs while silently cheering Eric's ingenuity. It made perfect sense to show Bethany the shortlist of projects from the Bent Protocol and see if she recognized any of them and it would mean that tonight they'd be able to give input as well as hearing the latest update from the team's work.

"Actually, I think she might be," Eric said with a grin. "She helped me see a couple of trends in the data that I might have missed because I was too busy looking at the whole picture. I think I might even have a new idea of how to interpret that email I got left by my predecessor, the one that didn't seem to match up with any of his projects."

"Really?" Nell almost dropped the plate she was washing in excitement and silently dammed the potential danger that had them speaking riddles. Eric could only mean the ransom note, the one that had been plaguing them ever since Sam had discovered it. They had been made anxious by the section which all the translations agreed on, which demanded Bethany's parents solve the barrier to access or they'd take Bethany and eliminate all obstacles. But it was the second half of the message which had been driving them crazy, it was a series of equations and system code none of them had recognized and which could not be solved despite weeks now of trying.

"Yup, so the sooner we finish this and get Chloe off to sleep the better, I can see a long night of work ahead of us -" Eric paused, bumping Nell's shoulder playfully, "provided you don't mind helping me out that is."

"Gotta make up for you having to leave work early somehow," Nell said archly flicking water at him as she passed over the next plate to be dried. Both of them grinned as Eric ducked, the water missing his face.

"Hang on. How did you manage to leave early? Wasn't your meeting with the directors this morning?" Nell asked, realizing she'd forgotten all about his day in the excitement they might be making headway on the case.

Eric's grin dulled, "yeah, the meeting went all morning." He sounded weary just thinking about it.

"And?" Nell prompted gently, sorry she hadn't asked earlier.

"You know how I've spent the past 3 weeks working on my predecessor Dr. Jennings' proposal to expand the Coles Levee Ecosystem Preserve to include more of the Kern River? He'd done all the costings and had all the relevant ecological studies done but at the end of the day, it was a complex scientific pitch to a group of high-level business strategists. They hadn't understood its scientific potential and the business case hadn't been very accessible either, it was so overrun by technical jargon it may as well have been written in Japanese. Rewriting the proposal seemed like the most sensible way to learn the scope of the role and Aera's current direction. So I put everything I'd learned from all the funding proposals I'd written for Henry into rewriting it. That's when I found in an earlier draft he'd mooted approaching additional research partners to help fund the expansion over the next 3-5 years, so once I'd finalized the new version I submitted it to them thinking it would buy me a few more weeks of inaction."

"Which is why you were so surprised when your regular weekly meeting with your boss got changed to a Directors meeting," Nell said abandoning the dishes to give him her undivided attention.

"Suddenly they were asking for a representation of the full proposal when initially it was just my boss who knew I was even working on it."

"Why didn't you tell me last night? I could have helped you prepare or at least taken on all the family stuff so you could have had an early night." Even as she said it she could see Eric shaking his head, she knew he'd never have agreed to her taking on all the case reporting but still. She felt so bad for not asking more questions when he'd first told her the meeting was changed on Monday.

"I needed to do this myself. I mean - not that you couldn't have - I mean reports are your forte but -" Eric stammered, shoving his hand into his hair in frustration.

"Hey," Nell said pulling off her rubber dish gloves and putting a placating hand on his arm. "There's nothing wrong with doing it yourself. I'm just used to being able to be your sounding board and supplier of Oreos."

Eric looked down at her hand and back up at her face, relaxing when she smiled but made no move to break the contact. Sighing, he went back to his story.

"So I did the presentation. I answered their questions and was all ready for them to be like 'thanks but our focus has changed, you need to be spending your time on these areas of tactical importance, etc., etc.'. But instead, the Director of Strategic Business Development says how surprised he was to be fielding calls from not only our existing partners but also some of the other leaders in ecological research saying they'd heard rumors the expansion was back on the table better than ever and wanted to know where to sign on to invest."

"Whoa." Nell tightened her grip on his arm, her eyes widening in surprise.

"I know! And I was sure this was when they'd say, 'you've breached protocol, you're fired.' But instead, they were shaking my hand telling me it needed to get final sign-off from the board but they're convinced this will help put Aera Energy back on the map and started talking about bonuses." Eric was back to looking slightly shaken. "It was just supposed to keep me out of trouble for a few weeks. Do no harm and all that."

"Wow, that's -" Nell shook her head, shoving him gently for making her think maybe it was bad news after all. "Congrats! That's seriously awesome!"

"Thanks." Eric blushed, shrugging awkwardly.

"And this isn't harm. They would have done it if that other guy hadn't been so bad at writing proposals."

"I know but -"

Nell could hear his concern and being out in the kitchen there was so much they couldn't say, just in case but she hated seeing him second guess himself like this. Unsure how else to get through to him Nell step forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, looking up into his eyes and trying to put all her pride and happiness into one simple gesture.

"Sometimes you have to just know you're the right guy for the job. I know it's only been a few weeks and it's a big decision with lots at stake but these directors aren't stupid and they aren't just accepting it on faith because of your title. Hell, they said no to the guy who'd been in the role for more than five years! Besides, the other industry experts agree so it can't be bad."

For a moment Nell thought Eric was going to going to continue to stand there, arms hovering awkwardly out to his sides staring at her like she was trying to convince him the sky was orange, not blue. Shaking her head Nell let her head drop onto his chest and was relieved to at last feel the tension drain out of him and his long arms wrap around her, holding her close.

"Thanks for believing in me."

It was barely more than a whisper as his lips brushed a kiss to her temple but somehow it made Nell feel more loved than she had in all the time since she'd left home and come all the way out to LA.

"Always," Nell whispered back, registering the slight increase in his heart rate with her cheek resting over his heart.

Nell tried to just relax and enjoy the sensation of being cocooned in Eric's arms, knowing it was a habit she would find hard to break, but once the question had occurred to her she simply couldn't stop herself from asking. It was, after all, a fairly pressing discrepancy.

"But given they'd just accepted your proposal didn't they want you staying on to work on follow-up?" Nell asked, reluctantly lifting her head off his chest to look into his eyes.

"Well. They were all for dragging me out to a fancy lunch and were even talking about dinner plans but once I explained that you were stuck at work and Bethany needed to be picked up and that I'd rather finish up my work so I could get home on time suddenly they were ushering me out of the office, telling me I could do the follow-up work from home if I liked and so I was back here by 2.30 pm."

"They abandoned their wining and dining plans so easily? You must have done some pretty smooth-talking." Nell said archly, raising a questioning eyebrow, sure that Eric was leaving something out.

"We reached a compromise," Eric said, the confidence that she'd seen building with every day he proved himself in the corporate environment shining through. "A celebratory dinner after the board's approval. I said I was sure you'd be delighted to be there."

Taking advantage of her surprise he dipped his head to press a firm kiss on her lips.

Nell's thoughts tumbled as she tried to figure out how Eric had managed to turn the tables on her. Flashes of the confidence with which Eric had ruled Ops long before Nell had known the LA Office of Special Projects even existed had been increasing in the past few weeks and so too had their familiarity with sharing each other's space but never in the whole time that Nell had known him had he been able to direct any of his confidence into action towards her. Always it was Nell who pushed the boundaries, initiated contact. Speechless Nell stared up into Eric's eyes, noting the light blush that colored his cheeks but for once Eric stood his ground giving her that same gorgeous half-smile he had whenever he didn't think she was could see him watching her. Despite her confusion as to what this all meant she couldn't help grinning back.

"Can I'va hug too now I've brushed my teeth?"

Nell had to laugh as Bethany's plaintive voice broke the moment and sent both of them reeling as they realized they'd gotten so carried away they'd forgotten all about bedtime stories. Nell was surprised to feel Eric's right arm tighten around her when she went to move gently away to trade places with Bethany. Instead, he used his left arm to draw Bethany into their little circle.

"If you've brushed your teeth does that mean you're all ready for bed?" Eric asked, knowing what the answer would be given Bethany was still wearing her clothes from school.

"Almost," Bethany said, seemingly committed to at least trying to get away with it.

"Well, we're _almost_ finished with the dishes if you want to run and do the rest of your jobs and we'll be there in ten," Nell said giving Bethany another quick squeeze before letting both Eric and Bethany go and turning back towards the sink.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Nell, not having had time to figure out what books children read now before they'd had to set off Bakersfield had resorted to adding the box of her favorite children's books to her meager pile of possessions to go with Callen and Sam in the removals truck. Which is how she came to be crowded into Bethany's tiny single bed along with Eric, a toy rhino, and a flopsy-eared rabbit reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

" _Very slowly, with a loud creaking of rusty hinges, the great iron gates of the factory began to swing open. The crowd became suddenly silent. The children stopped jumping about. All eyes were fixed upon the gate. '_ There he is!' _someone shouted._ 'That's him!' _And so it was!"_

With a grin, Nell snapped the book shut.

"You can't leave it there!" Bethany and Eric protested from either side of her.

"That's the end of the chapter," Nell said prosaically, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she'd be conned into reading at least two more pages.

"You can't leave it there!" Bethany and Eric repeated.

"Can't you read on until they've gotten inside the gates and met Mr. Wonka?" Bethany pleaded.

With an exaggerated sigh, Nell reopened the book and quickly checked how many more pages that meant. She had to admit that she was almost as keen as Bethany, she hadn't read the book in years, she'd wanted to reread it after seeing Tim Burton's strange interpretation but she'd been at college and there just hadn't been time to read anything not on the required reading list. Three and a half pages, closer to three if you discounted the drawing that broke up the third page.

"Alright, but as soon as they're inside the gates and have all met Mr. Wonka it'll be bedtime." Nell reasoned. Two heads bobbed in accent, Eric every bit as caught up in it as Bethany was. Smiling, Nell read on. She read on through the descriptions of Mr. Wonka greeting each child in turn until she reached the point she'd marked with her finger.

" _Charlie took one last look at them. Then, as the gates closed with a clang, all sight of the outside world disappeared."_

Nell slowly closed the book, choosing to ignore Bethany's quiet huff as she moved to extract herself from the warm bundle of Bethany's blankets.

"Goodnight Chloe," Nell said, pressing a kiss to her forehead and moving back so Eric could give her a kiss also.

"G'Night," Chloe said, trying to hide her yawn.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Nell and Eric had continued working away on what they'd been able to surmise from Eric's fishing expedition with Bethany that afternoon. It wasn't a lot, but a general direction was more than they had before. Eric's alarm forced them out of silent contemplation at quarter-to-ten giving them fifteen minutes to discuss what they needed to present to the team and set up the connection to Ops.

At exactly one-minute-past-ten, the connection opened and there were Callen, Sam, Hetty, Deeks, and Kensi waiting for them. They looked dead tired which had Nell unconsciously reaching a hand up to brush her fringe off her forehead, convinced she must look even more of a wreck given she hadn't stopped for long enough to look in a mirror since six am that morning.

Hetty gave them a couple of minutes to exchange greetings before getting down to business: "I trust your little experiment went well Mr. Beale? It was a bit of a squeeze to get the samples to you but hopefully, we covered a wide enough base?"

"Bethany was able to recognize three strings of codes across eight pages and even pointed out that pages six and four were out of order. She's a real natural," Eric replied, failing at suppressing the pride in his voice.

"And what conclusions can we draw from that?"

"We need to focus on training exercises: Beta-Delta, Alpha-Rho, and Alpha-Delta. But my hunch is that we need to dig deepest on Alpha-Rho, she found that one first and was asking about a section that doubled back on itself, a section which wasn't there in the examples I'd arranged for her."

"Our digging points to Alpha-Rho as well," Kensi said, lifting a ream of computer printouts to emphasize her point, "her father submitted the wrong answer twice in Alpha-Delta, once in Beta Delta and twice in Alpha-Rho but he noted a discrepancy in just Alpha-Rho. The report is mostly incomprehensible to me but the tech guy, Mastin I think his name is?"

"Ben Mastin," Nell confirmed.

"Right, he says the gist of it seemed to be about a circular or duplicating line of code. He looked up the training exercise and the log says that piece of code was in the section which was altered for the remaining three rounds of training it was used in before being decommissioned."

"But that duplicating line, did it stay in?" Eric asked, clearly getting frustrated by being briefed by people for whom code may as well have been written in the Icelandic language for all the sense it made to them.

Nell shifted her tablet to her left hand, dropping her right down by her side as though resting it and subtly bringing it within a few millimeters of Eric's hand. Not touching but close enough for him to feel the heat her skin generated. A tiny reminder that they were in this together.

Kensi, who'd turned back to her notes to try and find the answer to Eric's question was oblivious to the movement but Nell caught Callen's eyes flicking down to their hands, the beginning of a smile curling one corner of his lips.

"Uh, no," Kensi said, looking up sharply from her notes. "He said ' _the context was subtly different in relation to the ordering of elements in the preceding and following strings but that particular line was unchanged.'_ does that make any sense."

"Okay so, this might be the break we needed then?" Callen asked.

"Yeah, I'd say we've hit the jackpot," Nell said, skipping ahead in her mind, trying to see where this could lead them. What they needed now was to figure out where that code had gone and why having a circular element was so important.

That the next comment came from Deeks, who up until now had been uncharacteristically quiet, surprised everyone. "So we figured the next logical step would be to figure out what Alpha-Rah-whatever was being used."

"But we've struck a bit of a problem, Mr. Beale." Hetty's tone implied a high level of frustration, which Nell thought explained why the rest of the team looked a bit on-edge. "Your encryption, which protects the Bent Protocol, is rather sophisticated, and while the average tech can access the test results for individuals participating in NCIS training it became apparent very swiftly that the excellent people we have on hand could not even conceive of the complexity you had built into the system. I saw no reason to risk an additional breach by asking them to dig around in the hope they'd stumble across it."

"That's okay Hetty, all I need is the test results from Bethany's parents. It's actually pretty safe to dig around in the testing program, it just gathers the data, it's the three hidden systems that each extract 1/3 of the data at different stages of building the official results transcript that shouldn't be meddled with by idle minds. Our challenge is that I built a series of very complex protections for the single backdoor which links the training modules with implemented projects."

"But you do have a key I presume, Mr. Beale."

"Ye-s."

Hetty raised her eyebrows at the distinct wariness in Eric's tone.

"It's going to take some time, you see, I have to build a key. I didn't want anyone, even me, to be able to compromise such sensitive information quickly, in case. Uh," Eric swallowed nervously, "well, in case either Nell or I was kidnapped and needed time for you guys to find us."

"How much time, Mr. Beale?"

"On my own, 48 hours. But with Nell's help, I should be able to make it closer to 24, a lot of it can be done in parallel."

"Just how complex are we talking Eric?" Nell asked, realizing she had no idea what he'd done which could possibly have such a long lead-time.

"There are five based on asymmetric cipher in a dynamic combination of block and stream, two major firewalls and a mashup with eight rotating alpha-numeric keys."

"And there's no set answers, it's all algorithm based and each task requires all the keys before it with no bailouts?"

Eric nodded soberly, "I got the idea from protections which guarded the philosopher's stone in Harry Potter."

"Will someone tell me what all that means in English?" Sam cut in.

"Eric designed the digital equivalent of a Kill House."

"And if you get hit?" Callen asked sharply.

"It'll initiate emergency protocols, splitting each system off from the central access and we'd have to physically visit each site to re-establish the connection not to mention deactivate the failsafe protections which have automatically altered the native access codes."

"That sounds bad," Sam interjected.

"Time to get to the hospital but no guarantee you'll make it," Callen surmised grimly.

"The question is, can you solve it without getting hit?" Callen asked into the silence that had greeted his last remark.

"I designed it, so yes, _we_ can," Eric said firmly.

Hetty nodded. "Factoring in that both of you will need to perform your current duties, including going to work as normal, let's give ourselves four days. I will arrange for one of the other agents to make a delivery with enough ready-made food for a week which should help you maintain the appearance of normal duties without any extra agents being present in the house but if need be I will send extra hands to help."

"Hetty -" Nell said in a rush, but Hetty raised a hand.

"We cannot afford to have mistakes made due to lack of sleep or to tip any watching eyes off that you are not who you say you are, Miss Jones."

"I think we may need Bethany."

"Are you sayin' a six-year-old can help you break down the kill house you built? I thought it was meant to be impenetrable. " Sam asked incredulously.

"Not exactly. Her abilities with algorithms might be what got us into this mess but I think they may also help in getting us out of it. Even if it's just a couple of hours, she'd speed up the baseline calculations so Nell and I can work exclusively on the high-level encryptions."

"I'll leave it in your hands how you divide the load but do not forget that, despite her abilities, she is still a scared little girl."

"No-one is as terrified of her being hurt by all of this as I am but I know she can help and we don't have infinite amounts of time."

"Very well. We will continue to pursue our leads on how anyone could have found out that Bethany's parents could manipulate the code we've identified as Training Exercise Alpha-Rho. We will find this mole and the sooner the better."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes to hell in a handbasket.  
> CW: Blood, off-screen physical injuries, an ambulance ride, fear of/threat of MCD - but all main characters will live in this fic.

**Chapter 10: Diamond in the Rough**

.

**. .:. .. .: Undisclosed Location, California :. .. .:. .**

.

Standing at the washbasin vigorously scrubbing her hands, not caring that her skin was now red and raw, Nell remembers the first time she saw the sparkling ensemble of diamonds and sapphires. All she can see now is the blood that won't come out. Eric's blood. And she doesn't know whether she can face going back out into the world, knowing he isn't going to be there by her side. But there's still Bethany and even though she's falling apart at the seams, she'd never forgive herself if something happened to their little girl.

She might not be able to do anything for Eric now but she can still save Bethany, all she needs is time and a little bit of luck.

.

.

**. .:. .. .: The Past :. .. .:. .**

. : The Mission, Los Angeles :.

.

"Hey Nell, wait up!"

Nell turned to see Eric hurtling down the stairs of the darkened Mission. It was late, they had to be the only people left in the building except for the skeleton night crew that kept watch. They'd been rushing around all day trying to get ready to go undercover and all she wanted was to go home, have a bath and enjoy one last night of uninterrupted solitude.

Digging into a reserve of strength she was sure she couldn't sustain for much longer, Nell waited near the door for Eric to catch up. It wasn't that she was against spending time with him it was just she knew that a couple of weeks of raising a six-year-old, living under a false identity, pretending to be married to her best friend without ruining their friendship, and working some totally new job on top of doing Ops work wasn't going to be easy. In fact, by all accounts, it was going to be one of the toughest things she'd ever done. Which is why she needed to bank up her peace and quiet, fortify a few mental walls and figure out how to even begin to deal with being on alert 24-7 not as the Queen of Ops but mother, wife, and temporary agent.

Shoving all of that over-thinking as far back in her mind as she could, Nell smiled as Eric came to a stop two paces in front of her. Normally he would have just continued walking until they were level and they'd go on together, falling into step as they walked out to the car park but today, he stopped so she waited.

And waited.

"Umm... Eric? Is there something...? Ah, something you've forgotten or -?" Nell's words dragged out as she tried to figure out what exactly he was trying to achieve by just standing there looking at her.

Now that she came to think about it he looked extremely uncomfortable. The other thing that was odd was that he'd kept his left hand in his pocket. With an audible sigh, Nell decided the only real option was to wait it out. Eric would occasionally freeze around her and there would be at least one offbeat sentence, maybe more, then he'd be back to treating her like the best friend and partner she was.

"I think you should have a ring." Eric blurted out suddenly.

Nell froze. "Pardon?"

"A ring. I know Hetty gave you one but it's - it's not the same."

"What -" Nell frowned in confusion, "I'm not following. You mean our wedding rings? But Hetty -"

"I want you to have - I mean you need to have one to fit in - but I do want you to have it and so -" Eric stumbled and backtracked, looking more agitated with every attempt, till finally subsiding into silence again.

He was clearly _trying_ to say something important but what still eluded them both. If it hadn't been important he would be able to just come straight out and say it so she had to keep trying to figure it out or they could be stuck here all night.

"I need something else?" Nell asked tentatively, picking the easier of the two options. Want was a dangerous word.

Eric nodded and with a visible intake of breath, took his hand out of his pocket and held something out in the palm for her to see.

Nell was glad she'd been leaning against the wall waiting for him, if she hadn't she'd probably have had to reach a hand out to it for support. Nell's mouth was suddenly dryer than the Sahara Desert as she looked up from Eric's palm to meet his gaze. The intensity she found there did nothing to slow her heart's rapid acceleration.

"I know this isn't the way this is supposed to happen and that, well, this isn't - that we aren't - that none of this is for keeps - but," Eric paused and swallowed audibly, "you deserve to have a proper engagement ring. Everyone else will have one and you've already done so much for me by saying you'll come but most of all - Nell, I want you to have it."

For a few heartbeats, all Nell could do was stare at the beautiful combination of white gold inlaid with alternating diamonds and sapphires and finished with a central princess cut diamond, set so the corners pointed like a compass north, south, east, and west. It was all starting to make sense. The hesitation, the cryptic talk of needing another ring, the fear she could now see in his eyes. Everyone else would have an engagement ring. And now, so would she.

Before she'd had a chance to start to put her incoherent thoughts into sentences let alone begin to form words aloud, Eric stumbled on, his sentences broken and yet heart-warmingly sweet.

"You don't have to keep it - I mean, we can get something different if it's not -" Eric sighed, looking slightly green, "I thought maybe sapphires would be ok?"

Nell could see the tension and the anxiety that had made rigid his normally fluid posture. She could see the slight quake in the hand that was stretched out towards her and she could feel her heart pounding just as his must be pounding.

This time she was determined she must answer, as surreal as this moment seemed to her, she had some inkling of the terror her silence must be inflicting.

"Eric, I -" Nell's voice came out more like a croak and she paused in frustration, desperately trying to generate enough saliva to stop her tongue from feeling like it had doubled in size. The fraction of a second's delay felt like minutes before she was able to start again. "It's beautiful, Eric. I -"

Nell paused, a light blush staining her cheeks as she tried to find words to express just how much it meant to her. She didn't think she'd ever been given something so thoughtful - he'd even remembered that she'd always wanted to own something with real sapphires when she'd only ever mentioned it once in a weak moment.

"Thank-you," Nell said softly, trying to remember it was only for show and telling herself her racing heart was just because it had been a shock, nothing more.

With an unsteady hand, Nell reached for the ring, forcing herself to meet Eric's eyes.

"It's perfect, Eric."

Eric's smile stole what little remaining breath she had.

She forgot where she was. Forgot why they were doing this. Lost everything in that moment, except Eric standing in front of her, offering her a ring with a smile like he'd just been given rule over Camelot.

Neither of them spoke as Eric took her left hand in his, gently easing the ring past her knuckle to sit snugly at the hilt of her ring finger. It was warm, having been held tightly in his hand and a frisson of heat ran down her spine as it came to rest.

Nell wasn't sure how long they stood like that, hand in hand, looking into one another's eyes but it was Nell who moved first. Lacing her fingers through his she took the two steps forward and wrapped her other arm around him in a one-arm hug. For a moment Eric had frozen as though he was trapped between a pair of high-powered lasers but when Nell laid her head on his chest she could feel him relaxing, his free arm moving to rest on her lower back while he ever so gently squeezed the hand he held. And for the first time since agreeing to the scheme, Nell thought that they might actually manage to pull this off.

.

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**. .:. .. .: The Present :. .. .:. .**

.: Undisclosed Location, California :.

.

Turning from the basin, Nell knelt next to the figure curled up in the corner of two bench seats.

They'd given her a mild sedative on the ambulance ride to the hospital having checked there was no physical trauma. They said it would help her recover from the stress but Nell wondered if they had really just wanted to stop her screaming and needing to be restrained as they worked tirelessly on Eric. Nell was glad she'd had Bethany to hold onto once the Paramedics had taken over.

Bethany's unfiltered expression of fear and distress was strangely cathartic and clinging together somehow made up for the fact she wasn't able to hold on to Eric. Nell could still hear Bethany's anguished cries echoing in her head; "I love you, Daddy. I love you. Don't die Daddy."

It was almost as though Bethany had been crying and raging for both of them, allowing Nell to push down her fears and try and plan the next steps.

As Nell gently scooped her up into her arms she felt Bethany stir slightly and knew time was running out to get them somewhere safe. Once she woke up Nell would have to face all the questions she wasn't sure she could cope with yet.

She tried to work quickly, knowing this would be easier if she could get her changed before Bethany woke up but she felt clumsy and slow. Steeling herself Nell unclipped the clasp on the little white shoes Bethany had insisted on wearing every day to school and gently pulled them off her feet, setting them beside the bag of clothes Hetty had hidden for them. Nell's ice-cold fingers battled with the minute zip on Bethany's blue and white checked dress for what seemed like an age before it finally gave way. Quickly she slipped it up and over her head, replacing it with the little black button-down shirt. Instead of traditional buttons, it had a set of press-studs which echoed like firecrackers as she snapped each one shut, it that had her biting her lip remembering - NO!

She couldn't let herself think about that.

That was then and this is now. The future was the only thing that mattered.

Quickly she pulled on little blue jeans and fitted the surprisingly beat-up pair of black and grey trainers onto Bethany's feet. Delving into the bag Nell pulled the last two items from the bag marked C for Chloe; pointedly ignoring the M she could see at the bottom of the kit. The first was a plain black ball cap. The second was a short, mousy brown wig. Trying not to jostle Bethany any more than absolutely necessary Nell piled Bethany's long blond hair up on top of her head, securing it with a sophisticated hairnet before attaching the wig which completed the transformation of her gorgeous little girl into a somewhat scruffy little boy whose seemingly plain black shirt had Darth Vader's helmet printed in black gloss ink in such a way that you could only see it when the light caught it from the side. Maybe one day she'd ask Hetty if they made it in grown-up sizes, Eric would have loved it.

Giving her head a firm shake Nell turned her attention to the bag marked 'S' for Sally. She was pleased to find sensibly flat knee-high black boots she could run in on top and the casual skinny jeans and college sweatshirt underneath to help her blend in as just another college-age nanny and the little boy she looked after. Nell scraped her hair back into a messy ponytail, applied what she'd otherwise consider to be a little bit too much makeup, and started transferring the bare essentials from her handbag to the shoulder bag which would come with her from here onwards. The wallet in the shoulder bag was already stocked with cash ID and credit cards but she quickly transferred the safety deposit key, coordinates of emergency supplies (disguised as a contact list for loss or theft of credit cards), her mini first aid kit, and what looked like a simple pager but was an emergency beacon.

Pulling out some modified wet wipes Nell quickly smeared the prints on every surface she and Bethany had touched and other key areas they hadn't, making it look as though the cleaner had done a cursory but extremely ineffectual clean. She then forged the cleaner's handwriting on the cleaning log, altering the most recent entry so it recorded the clean as though it would be done in 10 minutes' time rather than 10 minutes before they arrived.

Nell stuffed her original handbag into the now mostly empty kit Hetty had prepared, put the whole lot back into the rented locker, and shut the little metal door, which locked in a series of clunks and beeps followed by a silence of ominous finality.

Shaking her head to clear it of such useless thoughts Nell slung her bag over one shoulder and scooped Bethany up to sit on her other hip. Affecting a nonchalance she didn't feel Nell walked away from the gas station with an air of aimlessness, heading for the car that was stashed a mile away in a rented garage.

Their cover had been blown and before they had a chance to think about putting their backup plan in place they'd been attacked. Nell suppressed the urge to dissolve into hysterics at the thought of Eric lying on their front lawn blood pouring from the wound in his abdomen. She and Bethany had to focus on hiding and staying hidden now or the coroner might be in for some overtime pay in the near future.


	11. Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favourite chapters of this whole fic and I wrote it before I wrote chapter 10. I'd recently started my first placement in a hospital and I just couldn't get this scene out of my head. It changed the whole landscape of this fic because originally I'd planned on Nell & Eric staying together the whole time and now I had to figure out what it meant if only one of them went back to the team.
> 
> CW: Hospitals, discussion of major injuries.

**Chapter 11: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light**

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**. .:. .. .: Bakersfield Memorial Hospital :. .. .:. .**

.

**.**

A small but formidable woman sat next to a hospital bed keeping a silent vigil. She was so still you would have been forgiven for asking if she was an elaborate doll, one worthy of Madame Tussaud's. If you watched carefully you might discern a subtle movement of the ribcage indicating breathing or think you might have seen her eyelids move but in both cases, the movements were so slight that you could never be completely sure you weren't imagining them.

The only sound in the room was the routine beeps of a heart monitor, meeting out each beat of a young man's life. Periodically a member of the medical staff entered the room, performing a ritualistic routine that measured the vital signs of their patient but never in the 54 previous visits had anyone dared to utter a single syllable. On the 55th visit, everything changed.

Claire Donoghue, Head of Nursing in Bakersfield Memorial Hospital was the only person, aside from the surgeon Matthew Scarlett, who had been allowed into this particular room since the patient had returned from surgery close to 12 hours ago. Each time she approached the door she would be vetted by a pair of seemingly soulless young men in black combat gear. Photo ID, signature, medical challenge question, and finally a pat-down for weapons was so far outside her normal duties that she'd come to think of this section of the hospital as some kind of bizarre alternate universe.

To be fair, the young man lying motionless in the bed had been rushed in with gunshot wounds to the abdomen, a collapsed lung, and a minor concussion. EMTs reported he'd been injured trying to protect his daughter and that thanks to him she had been treated for distress but no physical injuries. His wife and daughter had accompanied him in the ambulance but had since disappeared without a trace and seamlessly been replaced by the trio who now stood guard. She'd realized from the admission reports his wife worked here. The name Sally Whitman had been familiar from incident logs and resource memos even though she'd never actually met her. Sally was respected, hardworking and in a very short time had brought efficiency into tired policies in a way that benefited patients and staff rather than just the bottom line. She hoped they wouldn't end up back here on gurneys but she had a bad feeling the odds were stacked against them.

Claire, a pragmatist after ten-years working in the emergency departments of hospitals all across California, had seen no reason to object when she'd been instructed to take on this case just as her shift was meant to start. The orders were coming from way up high in the hospital food-chain and someone had already called her second-in-command to run the shift that had been due to start just one hour after Claire arrived at the hospital. The message was clear; this was not gang-related, there was no threat or danger to staff or patients but he was a VIP and someone, somewhere wanted him not to recover from his surgery. If it hadn't been for the guards and the woman who exuded power like a neon aura Claire would have been skeptical that she had the right room. In the bed lay a young man of average height, a lean but muscular build, and gently curling hair which made him look younger than his 1982 birth date. His injuries, while major had been repaired to the best of the ability of their chief surgeon and so far, he was recovering from both ordeals well. He wasn't out of the woods but he had at least made it as far as finding the path.

It was so faint Claire almost missed it. She would have had she not been looking at his face at the time and seen his lips move.

"-ell-"

It was slurred and not louder than a breath but Claire would remember that one, lost syllable for the rest of her life.

The woman who'd sat still as a statue for hours on end appeared beside the bed without Claire ever seeing her get up.

"It's ok Eric. They're safe, you just need to rest now."

Claire, who'd memorized the medical file, was perplexed by her patient Marcus James Whitman (nee. Cameron) being addressed as 'Eric' but at that moment she was too busy re-running all the vital measurements and ensuring her patient was not medically in any danger.

Claire couldn't say why she thought her patient had relaxed at the sound of the woman's voice but the impression was impossible to shake. Aside from his lips moving, nothing in either the monitors or his body seemed to have changed from the moment before the woman had spoken to after and yet –? Shaking her head, she went to leave the room to call for Dr. Scarlett now that his patient was showing the first signs of regaining consciousness. At the threshold, she paused and turned back. Sure enough, at that moment she spotted the one difference in her patient that had been on the edge of her mind but just beyond reach. The young man's left hand was resting palm up on the bedspread, where the fingers had once been in the gentle curl of sleep as they had been since his return to the ward post-op, now his thumb had shifted so it was resting over his gold wedding band. 'It’s ok Eric, they're safe' echoed in her mind as she closed the door behind her. According to hospital records his family had left against advice and literally disappeared into thin air and yet Claire wouldn't doubt anything that mysterious woman said was true.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

From her position at his bedside, Hetty breathed a sigh of relief as the nurse left. For just a moment Hetty thought Ms. Donoghue would ask why she had referred to the person she knew as Marcus, by the name 'Eric'. It had been a calculated risk that the benefit Hetty could offer to a semi-conscious Eric would far out way any fallout. A snap judgment that the woman who, for twelve hours had worked tirelessly, without complaint or question under highly unusual circumstances, would continue in that manner and that even if she did ask it would go no further.

Since the attack and the urgent distress call from Nell, Hetty had been contemplating the consequences of what has been thought to be the safest undercover mission she'd ever run. Hiding in plain sight while someone else made the break in the case, that was all it was meant to be and for 36 days it had been. Eric, Nell, and Bethany had, for all intents and purposes become the Whitman family while the rest of the team closed in on the mole inside NCIS and it was only chance that two crucial factors aligned against them within a few hours of each other.

Hetty could still see the tormented face of Benjamin Mastin in her mind's eye. Benjamin who'd gone home early from work thinking his wife wasn't well enough to pick their children up from school and had instead found her bound with a gun to her head. Initial protests that he didn't know what happened to Bethany were met with punishment to his wife and having not been trained as an agent but as the Op tech Nell had vetted for joint control of Ops in her absence, he'd broken down. To his credit, all he had admitted was that if they could get into Ops he could help them find her. This would have bought them time and the possibility of apprehending the perps but instead of taking Benjamin with them to Ops they'd knocked him and his wife out and left. They'd used gas so it had been close to two hours before Benjamin had been able to alert the team.

Once the criminals had known that Ops wasn't really being upgraded it had been a logical leap that Nell and Eric weren't in DC either and with Hetty's personal team all accounted for it had been the obvious conclusion that Eric and Nell were the temporary guardians for Bethany.

That same morning Marc Whitman, who had just completed his first month with Aera Energy was profiled in the online science journal 'The Ecologist' as an up-and-coming leader in ecological reform. Whether the two-time frames perfectly overlapped or the Mole already had a search running they didn't yet know. But they would. And soon if Hetty had anything to do with it.

As Hetty watched, Eric's eyelids flickered. This time he seemed to be closer to consciousness, as the lids opened she watched those intelligent green eyes respond to the harsh white light but once open they remained open, fighting to focus. It as though there was something telling him he had to wake up, to stay awake. Swiftly Hetty moved so that she was within Eric's field of vision, there was Hetty knew about 3-feet where he could comfortably focus on something without his glasses, provided of course you weren't asking him to read anything. Hetty waited patiently while Eric's eyes became accustomed to the light and, somewhat laboriously, focused on her face. With relief, she saw recognition flare and for the first time in 16-hours, Hetty smiled.

"Welcome back Mr. Beale, you gave us quite a fright."


	12. The Light's Always Red in the Rear-view

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally find out exactly what happened to Eric.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd never written suspense or a battle scene before so I've always been quite proud of this chapter and how the threads came together.
> 
> CW: Graphic Depiction of Violence, Guns, Gunshot wounds, Ambulances & Hospitals, fear of MCD - but all main characters live in this fic.

**Chapter 12: The Light's Always Red in the Rear-view**

**.**

**. .:. .. .: 48 Hours Previously :. .. .:. .**

**.: Area Energy, Bakersfield :.  
.**

Eric straightened his tie and tried not to notice the fact his collar felt tighter with the button done up. He'd gotten into the habit of positioning his tie in a particular spot, so it _looked_ like his top button was done-up, but it actually wasn't. It would sound, to anyone else, like an insignificant distinction but to Eric, it was a tiny defiance that kept him sane despite the straitjacket he was forced to wear - commonly known as a business suit. Yes, over the past month he'd gotten surprisingly used to it but at moments like these, he desperately wished for his sandals, his board shorts, and a soft cotton t-shirt. Hell at this rate he'd keep the suit if he could skip this presentation and go back to ops instead. Not that he'd ever tell Hetty that. It was dangerous even thinking it, after all, Hetty was the most omniscient person he'd ever met.

"We're just about ready Marc, James will announce you in 5."

Eric barely had time to look up and nod before his assistant had disappeared again. With a grimace, Eric gave his collar one last tug, picked up his notes, and headed for the mini-lecture theatre that had been dubbed the 'press room' during the heights of oil exploration although it was rarely used for external purposes these days. Today was to be an exception.

"...today we will present our official 5-year direct action plan to expand the Coles Levee Ecosystem Preserve and, at the conclusion of the presentation, there will be the opportunity to discuss how you can play your part in this historic project."

Eric wanted to roll his eyes at the dramatics, but he'd learned his presentation skills under Hetty's hawk-like tuition and even now, he couldn't shake the idea that if he did roll his eyes, she'd somehow find out about it. And that was one conversation he did not want to have. Settling instead for reshuffling the notes he held, Eric waited for the summons to come.

"Distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen, I present man of the moment and our Head of Ecological Preservation and Innovation here at Aera Energy, Marcus Whitman."

Resisting the violent urge to run in the opposite direction (and not stop till he was back in ops), Eric stepped up onto the stage and shook hands with the Director of Strategic Business Development before taking up his position at the lectern.

"Thank-you. As all of you are aware from our correspondence the topic of today's presentation, I will spare you the preamble and get straight to the details..."

Heads nodded as he spoke, their approval plain in their faces as he got swiftly into the complex segments of the report. Of the five rows of people seated before him, Eric recognized all but four from the dossiers he'd made-up on their existing and potential research partners before submitting his recommendations to them for consideration. As he presented the proposal, which he now knew almost by heart, he considered each of the unknowns in turn. There was a neat young woman who looked like she was fresh out of college, a man in his late 50s who was on the beefy side, an even heavier set young guy, and one who looked a lot like one of Eric's science teacher in high school. Eric reminded himself firmly that this was not a normal undercover op. There were no assassins, no disgruntled CIA operatives, no criminal masterminds, just a bunch of scientists, research assistants, and company employees listening to a presentation on a topic that fascinated them - money to fund their research. The young woman was almost certainly the Ph.D. candidate he'd heard mentioned in passing, the older man - likely was a trustee (all the major research companies seemed to come with at least one), the science teacher look-alike - probably a scientist because stereotypes existed for a reason and the heavyset young guy? He looked more like a journalist, but they'd agreed on supplied photographs only, so he was probably just an admin assistant of one of the big wigs.

It was a sign of the number of times he'd given the same presentation in the past week that he could now, without any real conscious effort, remember every word and repeat it faithfully while thinking of something completely different. But the wrap-up had been tailored for this specific group so, reluctantly, Eric turned his eyes down to quickly scan his notes. Thinking of Bethany's eidetic memory provided the smile Eric needed for his final flourish.

"As you can see, this historic venture - set to be the largest investment in ecological preservation and pioneering research since the establishment of the Coles Levee Ecosystem Preserve in 1992 - is also an opportunity for you and your research teams to be part of making history. So today I formally call for submissions. There is an application kit under every chair, and we hope to have a final list of partners and projects before Christmas. Thank you."

Eric paused, waiting for the polite (but totally unnecessary) applause to cease. It was then that, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the large young man move out of his seat but before he could turn his head to look properly at him and see what he was doing Eric was joined at the lectern by James, the director who introduced him and he was forced to turn his attention back to the presentation. When Eric next had a chance to look for the young man he'd gone, but then so had most of the really junior staff as the bigwigs stayed to discuss details.

**.**

**.**

**. .:. .. .: Ronald Reagan Elementary, Bakersfield :. .. .:. .**

**.**

40 minutes later when he'd finally managed to get out of the Press Room he'd been greeted by his assistant with the 'exciting' news that he'd been profiled in the online science journal 'The Ecologist' as an up-and-coming leader in ecological reform, complete with a photograph. Eric had managed a weak 'I'll have to send Sally a copy, she'll be so excited,' and had rushed back to his desk. Leaving his assistant trailing in his wake recounting the stats of all the new meetings which had been scheduled, how many proposals they were expecting and Eric was thankful for the first time in almost a month that he had an assistant who insisted on emailing you confirmation of everything he told you in person because he was barely listening as he sent urgent messages to Nell asking her to find the photo online and replace it while he destroyed the internal email, setting every opened copy to corrupt and every unopened one to disappear without a trace.

**.:.**

Eric had been so unsettled by the drama with the photograph that should never have existed - even though Nell had found it, replaced it, and had given the all-clear before it could be syndicated restricting it to just the people who had gone to The Ecologist website within less than an hour of the story being published - he'd taken the unprecedented measure of driving to pick Bethany up from school rather than parking at home and walking the short distance.

He kept telling himself it should be fine but once he arrived at the Ronald Reagan Elementary he found himself unable to wait, he had to see for himself that she was still there. Entering her classroom with a rushed apology and saying he'd come to take her home. The teacher, while standing on protocol had no recourse. According to their records, Eric was her father, so he got a stern warning about proper notice, but they were able to leave. There was genuine relief as he scooped the chattering Bethany up into his arms the moment they made it out of the classroom.

Something of his distress must have shown because when he released his first, vice-like hug she looked at him with very adult concern.

"I'm alright you know. I've only been gone since this morning and I've been here all the time, I promise."

Eric managed a smile at Bethany's consoling tone, reminding him just how mature that little brain of hers was despite outwards appearances.

"Sorry Munchkin, I've just had a very boring day and I've been looking forward to seeing you all afternoon. So, I decided to break you out of school early just this once."

"Does that mean we can play another puzzle game before I do my homework?"

It seemed like today he'd get no chance to forget why they were here and what was at stake if they failed.

The 'puzzle game' was the name Bethany had chosen for the algorithm cruncher he'd designed so she could help them break the lowest level encryption protecting the Bent Protocol. He was glad, given the public area she had no idea what that game actually meant and had chosen a suitably innocuous name for it. They'd actually gotten the last of the baseline encryption finished last night but there was no harm in keeping the game up to hone her skills and stretch her more than the school mathematics was able to.

Eric pretended to think about it as he opened the back door of the car for her to get in. They'd stuck to her always sitting in the middle of the back seat and today, Eric was glad of the extra security measure.

"You'll have to ask Mom, but I think we might be able to persuade her to let you, just this once."

**.:.**

Someone was following them. He'd seen them parked outside the school gates, but they hadn't looked like they were part of the school pick-up crowd. Besides, he'd picked Bethany up 20 minutes early with a trumped-up excuse so there shouldn't be anyone else who was outside the school gates leaving now. Unless they had been lurking, waiting for them? But that was crazy. The only reason he was here was that he'd had a bad vibe ever since that photo had gone out which could, in a one-in-one-million, chance be traced back to Eric Beale from the NCIS LA: Special Operations branch. Which is why he'd left work early, driven rather than walked to Bakersfield Elementary, and decided not to wait for the school bell.

Eric glanced in the rear-view mirror again, everything about that van was wrong. It kept an even 6-feet back no matter what speed he went, the windows were a couple of shades darker than legal, and either a genuine plumbing company had employed a serious amateur to wrap their car or it was a fake. And Eric's money was on everything pointing to this being a setup. Swallowing hard, Eric let his eyes fall to the face of the genius he was playing chauffeur to who was currently enthralled by the tablet app he'd made as a treat after all her hard work on untangling the encryption for the Bent Protocol. Thank-god he'd gotten to her first. Now he just had to keep her safe for two more minutes till he could get them home.

Nell was home, still tying up loose ends on the possible security breach, so all he needed to do was to get Bethany to that front door and provide enough distraction to ensure that she got inside. Hitting the hazard-lights button, Eric sped up slightly, praying he was making the right decision. Instead of turning on the indicators, a screen popped up on the dashboard and Nell was there instantly, her voice coming urgently into his earpiece, rather than through the speakers.

"Eric! What's going on?"

"We're being followed. They're hanging back which makes me think there might be a second-team who'll box us in at the house, they seem pretty content to let me get back there." His words were clipped, sounding harsh and loud in the relative quiet of the car and he saw Nell pale in response to his tone as much as his words.

"What do you need?"

Eric was relieved she didn't question him. He couldn't let Bethany see how terrified he was. This was the only plan he had.

"I'm going to drive straight across the lawn and swing the car so the back passenger door will be aligned with our front door, I need you to grab Bethany and get her to safety. I'll hold them off as best I can."

"Eric –"

"There's no time, Nell. I'm eight houses away, can you get to the front door?"

"Yes but–"

"Do it now." Eric cut her off forcefully; they didn't _have_ any more time. Somehow it was enough, Nell looked worried but raced off-screen.

"Daddy?" Bethany was staring nervously at the screen Nell had disappeared from.

"I need you to be brave Munchkin, okay?" Eric wished desperately he had time to reassure her, "Undo your seatbelt and slide over to the far side of the car. When I pull up at the door you wait until Mom opens the front door and then you run as fast as you can, okay? Don't look back, I'll be absolutely fine."

Bethany's lips quivered as she set aside the tablet and unclipped the safety harness, but she crawled across the seats just as he passed their next-door neighbor.

"Ready." That little voice was strong even though she was clearly scared. God, she was a fighter.

"Hang-on Munchkin, almost there," Eric swerved at the last minute taking them up over the sidewalk, dodging the street tree, and making a beeline for their front door cutting across their pristine front lawn. The front door opened as he pulled up, but he didn't pause or look back. He grabbed the sidearm that was stashed under his seat, flicked off the safety, opened his door, and turned to face the two men who poured out of the van that had followed them.

Whatever they were expecting, it clearly wasn't a fight. Their assault rifles hung from the straps slung across their bodies as they advanced, apparently confident that threat would be sufficient against two analysts.

"Give us the girl and no-one gets hurt." One of them shouted, making no effort to disguise his patently American accent.

Right now, it didn't matter that he'd never actually hit anything on either of the two occasions when he'd previously fired a real gun at the NCIS shooting range. All that mattered was that he was Bethany and Nell's only cover and if that meant firing wildly at the two men with assault rifles then so be it. Remembering what Callen had said he didn't worry too much about aim and focused on being erratic, he didn't have any skill so the best he could do is keep them guessing and pray Nell and the cavalry weren't too far away. He managed to get off two shots before either of them managed to raise and aim their rifle and just kept firing moving rapidly away from both the car and the house in hope of drawing any stray bullets away from his family.

He was already half deaf from rapid gunfire and totally off balance from the repeated recoil when the first shot hit him. It was as though every nerve in his body was on fire as he staggered, somehow managing to cling on to the gun when his whole existence was rapidly being reduced to wherever it was that bullet had hit him. The second bullet he experienced as a flash of white, his vision seeming to cloud with the pure agony before his head connected with the concrete of their driveway and everything went blissfully black.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

It had always been a possibility that the fight would come to their doorstep but seeing Eric's SOS message - suddenly it was real. The emergency beacons were active, backup had been notified and she'd called for the local police and ambulance just in case. Nell's movements were efficient, pausing only to view the video feed from outside as she armed herself, her senses heightened by adrenalin and the cold focus she'd learned in training washing over her as she quickly took stock of the situation, watching as the car barreled across the lawn and turned to pull up alongside the house. Ripping the front door open with unnecessary force Nell rushed to the car door Bethany was already opening, scooping her up into her arms and racing back inside.

As she ran she heard those first shots and knew this wasn't going to end well.

"You have to go back for Daddy!" Bethany cried, her arms thrashing as Nell ran through the house aiming for the den.

"Just promise me you'll stay inside until I come back for you. Don't come out, not for anything. When I come I'll say 'Dinner's Ready' -"

"I promise, just go!"

Nell pressed a kiss to Bethany's forehead, trying to hide her fear as she turned and sprinted back up the main hall to see what carnage waited behind their closed front door.

She had to force herself to slow down long enough to look at the screen first, Eric was out there with a gun (which may as well have been a cheese knife given his lack of training) and she needed to get to him. But she had Callen's voice ringing in her ears; telling her to trust her training not just react. Both Eric and Bethany were counting on her; she couldn't afford to get this wrong.

She'd never turned the screen off and so once she'd committed to looking, it was all there in Technicolor before her. The two men with assault rifles, Eric waving the pistol from under the seat in their car, dodging and firing, drawing them away from the house by keeping all their attention on where he was going to aim next. It was amazing that neither of them had hit him yet, but he was moving as erratically as he was shooting.

She didn't wait to see anymore. Wrenching open the door she moved with an eerie sense of calm, as though someone had hit mute. She only had one clear shot. The man closest to Eric was too much a risk from this angle. Take the first shot and move as fast as possible to the left to find a clean angle. That was the plan. They needed a lead, and they needed a witness. But they were far too close to Eric, she had to assume they had vested. As she fired she saw Eric fall, his head hitting the concrete with sickening force. For a split second she thought she'd made an impossible mistake and then she saw her mark face down on the lawn, his neck neatly bisected. The second gunman turned, hearing her fire, and gave her what she needed, a clear line to put a bullet in his head. She only wished it could have been before he shot Eric.

Nell paused, carefully checking her surroundings again to ensure there wasn't a second-team waiting in the wings or any civilians set to be caught in any future crossfire. Curtains twitched across the street, but no one came out to check they were okay. Nell didn't blame them; she just hoped they'd all put in extra requests for police and ambulances. Ambulances and backup, which were yet to arrive. Which meant she had no choice. She'd have to take Bethany with her to assess Eric's condition. It was too much of a risk to leave her in the house, even in the den, while all her attention was on Eric. At least if she took Bethany, she'd have some chance of protecting them both. It wasn't a good plan, but she couldn't just leave Eric to bleed out and backup was no-where to be seen.

**.:.**

_'Where was back up? Seriously! They needed them 5 minutes ago! Could the men who'd been in that van have already attacked the backup team? Surely they would have heard the instant that the team were offline. Oh, God.'_ Nell swallowed, fighting back hysteria as her turbulent thoughts chased each other around in circles of panic in her head. _'Surely not. Please don't let them be dead! And where was the ambulance? We live so close to the hospital! How hard could it be to drive a few blocks?'_ She wished desperately that they weren't 2 hours from Los Angeles. 2 hours from the team; from the security of Callen, Sam, Kensi, Deeks & Hetty as backup. Never, in all the years since moving out of home, had she felt so alone as she did now.

It was such a relief when she saw the red and blue emergency lights start washing across the neighbors’ houses down the street, the sirens dramatically increasing in volume. It had been agonizing having to keep up surveillance, her right hand rendered useless by her SIG while she applied pressure to the gaping, bloody holes in the front on Eric's white business shirt with her left. Bethany was sitting on her lap, protected by Nell's body and her gun, her two hands adding to the pressure on Eric's wounds. With the approaching sirens came the gut-wrenching knowledge, she had to ditch her gun and she had to do that now or lose any chance of receiving the medical help they so desperately needed. Trying to be as subtle as possible Nell lent further over Eric and slung the gun into the shadow of the tree beside them. It wasn't much and they might still have seen her do it but it was the least obvious way to dispose of it as the shadow and her back would have made it harder for the cars to see what she was doing.

As she sat up, at first she only saw black and whites advancing on them from north and south like - well, a tactical unit expecting a gunfight - but as they peeled off, pulling into driveways and surrounding curbs, their officers spilling out like ants, finally she saw what she had been wishing to see so desperately Ambulances.

What happened next was surreal, like Nell was seeing it from outside as well as being in the middle of it. It unfolded exactly as she would have ordered it be carried out, exactly as she had ordered such responses to be carried out in the past, with officers splitting into clear teams; searching the surrounding area, entering the house, going to look for witnesses among their neighbors and lastly, a more senior group, turning their attention on Nell, Bethany and Eric. The paramedics, in contrast, were single-minded. Three worked exclusively on Eric. Checking vitals, covering his wound and suppressing the bleeding, and prepping him for transfer. One had briefly checked the two men, clearing their rifles and then leaving their bodies to the police. There was no chance either was alive, with gunshot wounds to the head and neck you could see that from ten-paces but one of the medics confirmed it all the same.

Nell stood to one side, her blood-soaked hands shaking as she watched them, so calm and efficient but they moved swiftly and it seemed only a minute before he was on a gurney, hooked up to oxygen, a drip, and half a dozen machines and they were moving to load him into the ambulance. She could see Eric moving still but the movements seemed less distinct somehow, weaker. She wanted to go to him, but the fourth paramedic was inspecting Bethany who'd temporarily quietened to wracking sobs rather than screams of anguish. She couldn't leave Bethany's side even though she had herself checked her for visible damage, vision was not something you should rely on when professional help was available.

"Mam, I need to check your -" The Paramedic's words cut into her dark thoughts.

"It's not my blood!" Nell said impatiently, trying to see past the young Paramedic's shoulder to the ambulance while holding the distressed Bethany to her side.

"You're in shock, you might not realize -"

Nell turned on him, giving him her full attention for the first time since he'd approached them. She was angry but her protest died on her lips. She couldn't tell him she'd been in situations like these before, that she'd been trained, just as he had, to respond to scenes such as this. Eric would be safest if they maintained cover.

Nell nodded, spreading her arms in mute permission, submitting to the examination.

"Your daughter's physically unharmed," the medic said as he performed a thorough examination of first her clothes and the splashes of blood, then began a broader assessment while holding one wrist to check her pulse.

"Thank-you," Nell said relief flooding through her at the confirmation that Bethany was fine.

There was a sharp whistle and three pairs of eyes turned to look at the ambulance, Nell realizing that Eric was already loaded, ready to go. They needed to be in that ambulance. Nell wasn't letting Eric out of her sight till he was safely in that hospital.

"Come on, we'd better get you loaded too."

"We're riding with Marc," Nell said firmly as she stepped around the diligent paramedic, lifting Bethany up into her arms, and ran the 10-feet to the closing doors of the ambulance.

Whatever the waiting Paramedics saw in Nell's eyes was enough for one of them to put out a hand to help her up. Close to Eric looked paler and his grasp on consciousness more tenuous. Nell allowed the same medic to guide them to a seat up near the driver and strap them in as Bethany, having also spotted Eric began to cry loudly and began violently wriggling, trying to break Nell's hold to go to him.

Nell was so busy trying to maintain a non-bruising but iron-like hold on Bethany and trying to at least lower the decibels of her plaintive cries that she missed the moment they'd begun to move and was therefore surprised when they suddenly took a corner. The surprise had its benefit. Bethany paused momentarily in her deafening distress, but it wasn't long-lived, building up again to a crescendo.

One of the two medics who were working tirelessly on Eric reached for a draw, extracted a syringe and a vial and turned to face them, and came towards them, moving with the fluid grace of a sailor used to rolling seas.

"I'm sorry we'll have to give her a mild sedative, we can't risk it escalating to shock. She'll become drowsy but not truly unconscious." the medic said, drawing the plunger on the syringe to fill it with the liquid from the vial.

Nell knew it was more likely about preventing either the driver from having an accident or one of the medics being distracted at the wrong moment, but she gave her consent, if she had known that their team would meet them at the hospital she would have been tempted to ask for some Valium for herself as well. But there was no such guarantee so she would need her wits about her.

"Chloe," Nell said looking into Bethany's reddened eyes and putting a quieting finger to her trembling lips, "they're going to give you a little injection, to help Daddy."

It wasn't completely a lie, but Nell was glad that for once Bethany's superior and inquisitive mind did not question the lack of logic in injecting one person to aid a completely separate one.

Bethany gave a hiccupping sob but nodded bravely, the tears still running down her cheeks. Nell met the paramedic's eyes as he swabbed her tiny little arm and gently inserted the needle into her vein. He'd returned to Eric's side by the time Bethany's little eyelids slid shut and she slumped gently into Nell's embrace.

The resulting silence made Nell realize how cathartic Bethany's crying and raging had been, how it had occupied so much of her mind that she'd had little to spare for exactly what the medics were doing because she was splitting her focus between Bethany and watching Eric's face. But Nell didn't have long to consider the change before she felt the ambulance stop and the sudden rush of activity denoting their arrival at the hospital.

Careful not to get in the way of either medic Nell hurried to undo the harness which had pinned her to her seat and shifted Bethany into a less confining position so that she could get out before she lost sight of Eric altogether. Nell was surprised to see Diane standing with four men in suits waiting at the entrance to the hospital. Fear spiked as two of them moved to follow Eric's gurney, but then Nell recognized one of them as FBI Agent Dunin. Hetty had been trying to poach him for a few years now. Quickly she scanned the faces of the other two unfamiliar men. With the new context their names surfaced from the depths of her mind, Agent Carter (Dunin's partner) and Senior Special Agent Asten (Dunin's boss), she noted all three men wore their tie pins down at half-mast and realized Hetty had sent help after all. The fourth man, the hospital's CEO looked distressed and uncomfortable, but it was him that spoke as she approached.

"Sally, these men say they're here to provide police protection to you and your husband because there was a shooting?" He looked at her expectantly, clearly hoping there had been some kind of terrible mistake.

"That's right, Sir." Agent Asten said firmly, "We'll look after Mrs. Whitman and her family from here."

Diane who, until now, had stood still as a statue burst into tears, saying incoherently "I'm so glad you're alright Sally."

Agent Asten looked slightly uneasy at the transformation from efficient secretary to blubbering mess but motioned to the CEO that it was his problem and began to usher Nell after the retreating gurney. The whole exchange taking barely a minute although it felt interminably extended to Nell.

"Wait!"

Nell turned to see the now sobbing Diane pick up a cloth bag at her feet and step towards them.

Senior Special Agent Asten put himself between Diane and Nell with a speed that increased Nell's confidence in him, but she doubted it was necessary.

"There's a spare shirt and a cardigan that should fit you, Sally. They're not much and I'm too tall to lend you some pants but I thought if you weren't hurt you'd want something -" Diane swallowed, visibly searching for the right word, " _clean_ to put on."

Senior Special Agent Asten took them and glared suspiciously at Diane. Nell managed to get in a couple of words before being propelled along in front of the out-of-sorts but highly regarded agent.

"Thank-you Diane - I -" Nell couldn't think of anything that could in any way explain so instead she nodded and allowed herself to be swiftly led away, her focus now 100% on Eric's gurney which was now approaching the far end of the corridor.

She was aware of Asten riffling in the bag and muttering darkly about 'good deeds' being suspicious but was more interested in the fact that Eric had continued past the last emergency bay and had been joined by a man Nell recognized as their Chief Surgeon, Matthew Scarlett. She was surprised then to hear Asten's voice clearly in her ear.

"The OR is prepped. They’ll be starting to work their magic on him as soon as they can get him to theatre. Dunin and Carter won't leave his side for a single moment throughout surgery and recovery. Henrietta and your team will be here as soon as humanly possible."

Nell swallowed, trying not to let it show how relieved she was to hear that they were on their way.

"In the meantime, my orders are to get you safely away from here. No." Nell, who'd tried to stop at his words, was forcibly propelled back into motion, "you know you can't stay. For the same reason that Henrietta didn't send NCIS agents to meet you, even though they were probably closer. It's not just the mole, no-one has heard from your official NCIS backup and news of a separate attack on Benjamin Mastin -" Nell's shudder must have told Agent Asten she recognized the name as he made no further explanation of who he was, "- reached your team before they left in response to your distress call. Henrietta was actually briefing me to provide you with immediate backup when she got the call about it."

Nell's felt cold. Once news like this would have terrified her, perhaps even been paralytic but instead it galvanized some deep-seated need to fight. A need to protect and to avenge. Asten must have seen something of her thoughts because his next words fitted her mood as accurately as if she'd spoken aloud.

"There is a beat-up dark blue 2000 Chevy Malibu in the car park reserved for Surgical Residents with a full tank of gas, supplies and I've been told you'll know how to get to the _North West Exchange._ The shirt in this bag is no more identifiable than the one you're wearing and the fewer bloodstains visible the easier it'll be to get you safely out of here. I've checked both items for any tracking devices. It seems your assessment, after your unexpected conversation with Diane a little under a week ago, was accurate. Kindly, eager, intelligent but no genius, and completely uninvolved. That CEO's an idiot if ever I saw one though, I imagine he has to rely on his assistant a great deal."

They had turned down a hallway leading to the inner workings of the hospital and now Asten opened a door on their left marked STOCK: NON-MEDICAL SUPPLIES and ushered her in. Once inside he seemed surprised to have Nell hold Bethany out to him.

"If I'm going to change I'll need both hands," Nell said roughly, waiting only long enough to be sure he had Bethany securely in his arms before she picked up the bag on the floor, but stayed facing the agent. Known commodity or not, Nell wasn't about to lose sight of Bethany even for a moment and she was a long way past caring about common principles of modesty. Nell wiped her blood-stained hands on the already ruined shirt before unbuttoning the collar and cuffs and slipping up over her head. She was relieved the blood had dried completely now so she was able to slip the larger off-white shirt on without worrying about staining it too. Tucking the too-long shirt's tails into her jeans, thankful that black didn't show bloodstains as obviously as every other color, Nell reached for Bethany. Asten, despite his total lack of emotion as she changed, was visibly relieved to hand back the drowsy six-year-old he'd been entrusted.

"You've got a diversion in mind?" Nell asked as she handed him back the bag with Diane's lime-green cardigan.

"Yes. You know how to get to the East Car Park stairs from here?" He acknowledged Nell's nod and continued, "There will be a minor incident at the ambulance ramp you came in, a diversion at the North stairs, and me trying to keep up with a young woman wearing this green thing storming towards the OR."

Nell nodded and started for the door.

"Send a message to 213-557-4740 to let me know you've made it to the Cache and if you need anything - call me first."

"213-557-4740," was all Nell said as she slipped out the door into the maintenance corridor, her gratitude could wait until she'd made it out of here alive.

**.**

**. .:. .. .: The Present :. .. .:. .**

.: Bakersfield Memorial Hospital:.

**.**

When Eric forced his eyes open again it was not Hetty's but Callen's sharp blue eyes that met his and Eric was relieved. It was easier that way.

"Sam's going to be furious. He was here for three-and-a-half hours, pacing around like a caged lion, and the only break he's taken, getting us some decent coffee from the cafe down on first, you open your eyes."

It wasn't much of a greeting. Certainly not anything in the order of 'I'm so glad you're still alive, Eric' but again, Eric was relieved. No need for that awkward conversation or the one about how he'd managed to let Callen down; had failed to protect Nell and Bethany. Nope, just a calm, ordinary type of conversation.

"Tell me you've got some kind of tech device on you. A laptop?"

Callen shook his head.

"A tablet?"

Callen shook his head again.

"A smartphone?"

Eric was just trying to figure out if he could somehow modify something as antiquated as a pager when Callen dug into his pocket.

"This do?" Callen asked eyebrows raised holding out an iPhone.

"Perfect." Eric lifted his arm to reach for it and had to suppress a wave of nausea. Looking down at his arm he saw plenty of tubes attached to it but no reason for the sudden desire to empty his stomach.

"I believe that would be a result of them having to reinflate your right lung. Sounded pretty nasty. Apparently, they stick the medical equivalent of a drinking straw between your ribs to extract the air, which was preventing the lung from filling. You did an impressive job of injuring yourself thoroughly."

Eric regarded Callen warily as he approached, holding out the phone, his tone still casual. He knew he'd have to get down to brass tacks soon enough but first, he needed the phone Callen had just placed in his hand.

"Thanks."

"You can't reach them you know, Hetty told you she's heard they're okay but that's all any of us know."

"Nell will have left me a message," Eric said, his focus never leaving the screen he was rapidly typing on at arm's length. If Callen wondered what we so urgent about a Final Fantasy MMORPG Administrator's Forum, he chose not to comment. He leaned against the raised side of the hospital bed and watched in silence as Eric started rapidly scrolling through the visible entries on a page entitled _'Hyur Clan Moderators'_.

"Found it."

Another man probably would have jumped at Eric's sudden announcement, Callen merely raised an eyebrow. Eric considered the fact the message would mostly be incomprehensible to Callen but dismissed it as irrelevant, turning the phone so Callen could see the screen.

The post Eric was pointing to read:

" _Scw-Hyur has successfully fled Ul'dah and settled in Ala Mhigo with the assistance of Roegadyns Naest and Nduin. Limsa remain on guard but Alay-Hyur are well protected in sector eight, chamber nine, astral five and no Highlanders have taken note. I will lead as a Mi'qote, Keeper of the Moon until Dalamud falls. Seek by the Sun, clear my path, I will repel the Garlean Invasion. Lalafell-Mew, ILU2."_

Eric waited impatiently for Callen to read it, knowing it really wouldn't make any sense, but it was proof that Nell was safe and that he needed to get in contact with her now before she did something stupid.

"Alright, so I'm going to guess that this means you know where she is?" Callen said, his words were light but the eyes which met Eric's were serious. All jesting gone, just cold, soul-deep assessment.

"Do the names Asten and Dunin, FBI mean anything to you?" Eric asked, meeting Callen's challenge head-on. Turned out the boardroom had rubbed off on him after all.

This time, Callen's surprise was blatant.

"How? How did you get their names from four lines of gaming mumbo-jumbo?"

"Roegadyns are a race with characteristics similar to trusted non-NCIS Agents and the name cipher is so simple anyone who knew what they were looking for would find it. They got her and Bethany out and are their lifeline if anything goes wrong. She hasn't gone to an NCIS safe house because she says they fled the place where Hyur's normally live and ended up where the Hyur's actually fled from. She's given me enough pieces to be able to track them - sector eight, chamber nine, and astral five - and she's warning me you don't know where she is with the comment about the highlanders."

Callen looked at him quizzically, looked back at the post, and shook his head. "Glad she didn't leave anything half that complicated for me. I doubt all the Wikipedia entries in the world could have deciphered that for me. What about the rest?"

"I need a favor. You can do whatever retribution you had planned for me once we find Nell and Bethany, I know I failed you. Failed them. But you have to take me back to Ops, right now." Eric's voice was calm, he didn't plead he just spoke as though giving orders. When Callen opened his mouth to protest, Eric plowed on regardless. "I'm the only one who can find Nell once she's gone dark. She's about to take on the Mole single-handedly, so I'd recommend you find Sam and get him to bring the car around front, we've already lost enough time."

It was at that moment, as Eric stared defiantly at Callen, that Sam arrived carrying the coffee.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

"So, tell me again how this crazy non-English paragraph was enough justification to break a guy who's just had major surgery out of hospital, disobeying a direct order from Hetty?" Sam asked, taking his eyes off the road to glance meaningfully at Callen.

"If I left you a message to say I'd 'gone fishing in Utah with my Uncle Mitch' would you have sat around licking your wounds?" Callen threw back.

"Given the only fishing you ever do involves information rather than boats, you hate Utah because you got stuck in a mineshaft in a mission you still won't tell me about _and_ you distrust all men named Mitch because of one guy who turned out to be a plant? No, I'd be tryin' to figure out how to save your ass before you did something stupid."

"Exactly. Apparently, Nell's fantasy board post thing is like that. And I didn't get _stuck_ in a mineshaft, I just spent more time there than I wished to."

"That's the definition of stuck, G - not being able to leave when you want to. Still think she should have sent us a message instead. She knows he took two bullets and a nasty crack to the head, what if - you know."

"I didn't make it?" Eric asked coolly meeting Sam's gaze in the rear-view mirror.

"You were busted up pretty good. And what's to say you wouldn't have been able to read that message for like a week."

"It's not a cry for help. She doesn't want me to come to her aid, much less stop her. She's letting me know she's okay and for old times’ sake, let me know her plans. She would have gotten in touch with you if she'd needed to be bailed out or rescued in a hail of bullets, but this is a problem you're not going to be much help with."

Sam looked shocked. Eric's hesitation, his blustery way of talking, his convoluted and highly technical descriptions - all gone. Sure, Eric looked, except for the bandages and borrowed clothes, just as he normally did but this wasn't the innocent but brilliant tech operator they'd teased about playing house. As though confident the conversation was now closed, Eric's eyes slid shut, the strain of breaking out of hospital beginning to hit now they were on the highway and the adrenalin levels started to drop.

"Are you sure they removed all that lead from him?" Sam asked Callen at a volume just a shade above under his breath.


	13. Ain't No Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric & Nell each trying to solve the case. Hetty imposes some conditions on Eric's return to Ops.

**Chapter 13: Ain't No Sunshine**

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**. .:. .. .: Undisclosed Location, California :. .. .:. .**

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It was in the middle of the night when she tried to force herself to sleep that Nell felt most helpless and alone. It had taken almost three chapters of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory before Bethany had quietened down enough to stop her anxious wriggling and start yawning and another whole chapter before Nell was sure she was really asleep and wouldn't raise that tired head and protest the moment Nell paused for more than one breath. Nell had never really had any feelings for or against eBooks, but the ability to download the book they'd had to abandon back in Bakersfield was one tiny positive in this whirlwind of chaos and pain. But reading it made her acutely aware of his absence, he loved storytime almost as much as Bethany did and it didn't seem fair somehow to go on with the story. She had to believe they'd have more time together later, there was so much left to say.

Nell bit her lip as she looked out the open bedroom door to the dimly lit apartment beyond. Taking in the overstuffed couch and slightly beaten-up coffee table, the faded curtains, and dated kitchenette. It was the perfect place to hideout. The apartment complex was older and its managers indifferent to anything except their paycheque. It had an excellent location, was clean and relatively quiet but there were always vacancies and people tended to keep to themselves. Offered three months’ rent in advance they’d asked no further questions, merely handing over the key and a list of building rules.

Nell was grateful they had a roof over their heads and a level of anonymity which should have been impossible given how much news coverage the attack had initially gotten. The problem was Nell couldn't shake the bone-deep feeling of emptiness. Every little thing they did from breakfast to bath time rammed home the fact that Eric should have been there with them; laughing, playing games, trying to be strict about things like vegetables and bedtime - but they were alone.

In the darkness, Nell felt her eyes burn as she looked over Bethany to the other half of the double bed. The side where Eric should have been lying, one hand resting just behind Bethany, so he'd feel it if she stirred in her sleep or awoke from a bad dream. Even with Bethany tucked in beside her and blankets all around them, Nell felt cold and alone. She hadn't realized just how interconnected she and Eric had become. That his not being there could somehow make her feel like it was a part of herself that she was missing. And it wasn't just that she didn't know how to be a single parent or that needed his brilliant mind to help her figure out the labyrinth-like puzzle the mole had left them. She needed to see his goofy smile, to hear the confident edge in his voice, to feel his arms around her in one of those hugs that had become as natural as breathing, to experience that wave of jittery excitement when his lips brushed hers.

Never, even in the middle of the worst break-ups, had she ever felt this craving, tearing sensation at being apart from someone. She tried to tell herself it was because she'd had to leave him at the hospital, bleeding and broken, with nothing more than a single text as reassurance that he was going to make it. But it was more than that. Part of her was afraid that even if they solved this case and it was safe to go home, even if the doctors had worked a miracle and Eric was physically and mentally okay, she'd already lost her chance to be _more_ than his colleague and best friend. That thought scared her almost as much as the knowledge that just because you made it through surgery didn't guarantee that, days later, you still lived to tell the tale.

At least she knew that much. She'd only allowed herself one message in each direction before severing her link with Senior Special Agent Asten. Even using a phone without GPS capabilities and knowing that Asten was clean, it was too great a risk to leave a communication link open. She'd sent the message to say they'd cleared out the cache and found somewhere safe to stay. Then she'd waited, tortured herself with all the possible reasons for the delay, for 96 minutes until the message finally came.

' _Our friend came out of the theatre with good reviews and straight into the arms of the director, still waiting on full press release for future prospects out of this success.'_

Thinking about it, Nell struggled to keep a lid on her emotions, hot tears springing to her eyes as she re-experienced the dizzying relief that he'd made it through surgery. That he was still alive. That she hadn't abandoned him to die alone.

There was no point even considering ways of trying to find out Eric's status. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that there would be no record of his ever having been admitted to the hospital. That his charts, a necessary reality for even patients that didn't officially exist, would be paper-based and most likely in the safekeeping of Hetty herself.

She knew it was probably pointless to have left a message where only Eric would ever find it but not following their plan would be admitting that he really might not make it and she couldn’t accept that. He had to make it. And if by some miracle he did manage to read her message he'd know that she hadn't given up, that she was still fighting, doing everything she could, to make sure they were all safe. But more importantly, he'd know the one thing she wished she'd told him sooner. A fact she'd only really understood when she'd had to leave behind at the hospital.

Silently Nell willed the digital clock glowing on her bedside table to speed up, willed the sun to start to peek around their crappy blinds. She felt so powerless lying here wondering if any of them were going to make it out of this mess. Come morning she'd be back in control. Come morning they'd go out to find breakfast and a wifi network strong enough to divert to their servers undetected. Then she’d finally have a chance to dig deeper into her four main suspects – Tom Bright, Luke Isaac, Cecilia Blake, and Mitch Prentice – because there had to be a link between their role in the training program, Bethany's parents, and the Bellington Supply Base. But with at least four more hours before sunrise, a few more before she could wake Bethany and get on the road, Nell let the tears she'd been fighting all evening fall in silent waves. Each tear burnt a pathway across her cheeks, her breath catching and shuddering but barely audible as she let the pain and fear overwhelm her just this once – allowing her strength to ebb away with her tears as sleep pulled her into its welcome embrace.

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**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

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"I need a word with Mr. Beale. Alone." Hetty announced appearing in Ops with the stealth that kept rumors of her ninjutsu training alive and well. Her critical gaze took in the greyish pallor of Eric's determined face and the awkward semi-reclined position of his swivel chair at the Island with two keyboards and a tablet controlling three distinct areas of the main screen all running different operations. She was not in the habit of having to go to the person being reprimanded but having seen the level of assistance required to enable Eric to ascend the rear stairs once, it seemed unnecessarily cruel to insist he move for anything less than an emergency. With no way of knowing if the mole was still watching, the fewer people who realized Eric was back in the building the happier she would be. Her announcement had sent the techs Eric had working alongside him scuttling towards the exit, leaving only herself, Eric, Callen, and Sam.

When Callen hesitated, as though preparing to mount a defense on Eric's behalf, Hetty continued, "Yes, Mr. Callen, that applies to you and Mr. Hanna too. But do not suppose I have forgotten your part in removing Eric from the safety of his hospital bed."

"We'll help Kensi and Deeks go through the background checks on the parent's supervisors," Callen conceded as he and Sam headed for the exit, not missing the dangerous note in Hetty's clipped sentences.

"You'll figure it out, Eric. Nell knows that," Sam added in an unexpected endorsement as they paused in the doorway.

"Today gentlemen." Hetty's patience was wearing thin and having each said their piece, Callen and Sam made a hasty exit.

Despite looking up when Hetty first arrived in Ops, Eric had remained focused on the screen in front of him which displayed the message Nell had left him on the Final Fantasy MMORPG forum. He knew Hetty was going to be furious at him having come back to Ops when he was supposed to be in the hospital under guard but whether he kept his job after this operation paled in comparison to his need to help Nell now and bring both her and Bethany home safely.

Not one to be ignored, Hetty came to stand between Eric and the big screen, positioning herself right in the center of his field of vision.

"We **_will_** discuss your defiance of my direct order by instructing Mr. Callen and Mr. Hanna to break you out of the intensive care unit of Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and we will _also_ review your decision to take on two armed men without training or adequate protective equipment but they can wait. Right now, what is important is that we figure out Miss Jones' plan and can establish contact with her before we send the team in to get the bastard who thinks he can attack and threaten my team. Given the extraordinary circumstances under which this operation has been conducted I'm giving you the chance now to fill me in on everything that happened between when we spoke to you the night before the attack and waking up in the hospital. Based on that report I will make my decision as to whether or not to force you to return to medical care where the only tablets you'll have access to will be the kind designed to eliminate the pain that is making you break out into a sweat every time you extend your arm or compress your abdomen by moving too quickly."

Pushing down his frustration at the delay it would cause Eric acknowledged that he'd been expecting this. He was grateful that he had a chance to defend his decisions and relieved that at least Hetty agreed their priority had to be helping Bethany and Nell. It wasn't that he was insensible to the very real threat of being sent back to the hospital but his determination to stay the course was unshakable. Having faced death so recently had left its mark. Eric was almost certain that Hetty knew that if she removed him from the team now he'd resort to his old network of hackers and consultants and break back into the NCIS system by force if he had to. Ira owed him a few favors and Eric easily afford to pay for the services he would need to identify the mole who threatened his family and bring them home on his own. But it would also be a relief to tell someone about the events leading up to the shooting. He'd told Callen and Sam just enough to convince them to work on the background checks, but he’d left out key details knowing that they were all itching to raid the facility that had been identified as Alpha-Rho; a move that Eric couldn't risk until he knew who the mole was.

With a sigh, Eric put down his tablet and began his story.

"Just before midnight we cracked the final layer of encryption on the Bent Protocol and submitted the request for the details on where the Alpha-Rho program had been implemented. The final fail-safe I'd put in place was that request takes 6 hours to process because the system doesn't have a master list of locations. All of the location data is broken into thousands of individual packets spread out across the system code and all the final layer of encryption gives you is the algorithm required by the program to rebuild that information."

"And I will repeat what I said to you when you first explained your concerns about building a system which would contain the security information for every secure navy facility and both inside and outside this country. When you asked me for permission to protect the system from everyone, including yourself. 'No system which protects such highly classified information should rely on the integrity of our people or be blind to the extreme lengths our enemies will go to to obtain this information.' Your system, The Bent Protocol, hasn't failed us, Eric. Even in crisis, it functions _exactly_ the way it was intended to. We just never imagined a brilliant little girl might accidentally uncover a line of code which was unique enough that someone might notice it within the host system and that it would be _us_ who needed to identify which center was being targeted."

Eric knew that what Hetty was telling him was the truth. Knew deep down that this process had proved beyond a doubt that the Bent Protocol was still the best defense they had but it didn't stop the bile roiling in his stomach at the thought that the delay it caused might just be the difference between seeing Nell and Bethany again and being too late. But this was Nell, his Rockstar, the all-round agent and analyst extraordinaire. He might not have much faith left after the shooting, but he still believed in her.

"We set the den up so that it only functions when one of us is inside the room and the door is shut. Nell wanted to stay down there, sleep on the couch while the algorithms processed but we were both wrecked. I had to be at work at 6.30 and that meant Nell would be on her own with Bethany till school started and you can't be on entertainment and guard duty without any sleep, so I convinced her to come to bed till 5 am. When we got up, Nell dressed and went straight to the den to get the system up and running the algorithms before setting up a play station down there for Bethany. Once I was ready for work I got Bethany up, fed her breakfast, and got her ready for school. I made Nell’s breakfast so she could eat while Bethany settled in the den and I left for work at 6.15. Allowing for the necessary time to walk Bethany to school and maintain a normal appearance, it couldn't have been before midday that the program finally generated a location. The Bellington Supply Base."

"Go on, Eric. What next?"

"Knowing we had a mole on our hands the location wasn't by itself wasn't enough. We'd discussed the strategy beforehand and decided that there had to be a link between one of the people that either of Bethany's parents -"

"Craig and Samantha Hayes."

It wasn't a question, but Eric nodded all the same. He and Nell had avoided using their names for so long to try and minimize leaks but now it was important to remember so they could find that final connection. Thinking about Craig came with an uncomfortable reminder that once the mole was found, they were all going to have to face the reality that Bethany was an orphan now. A month living undercover as her dad wasn’t going to be enough to automatically grant Eric parental status. Clearing his suddenly dry throat, he pushed down his frustration and continued.

"There must be a link between her parents, and someone connected to the Bellington Supply Base, so I know that was what Nell would have been looking for. But the only time I got to speak to her was when she was replacing and destroying all traces of the original of the photo which appeared in 'The Ecologist', we thought we'd have more time. We didn't realize -"

"None of us realized Eric. We thought we had enough time to be thorough, to check and recheck every piece of information because nobody was looking for you. And then all hell broke loose."

Eric swallowed, trying not to think how scared Bethany must have been. How scared he'd been. How scared he was now of losing them before he had a chance to tell them how he felt. Because he loved them so much and he’d give just about anything for a chance to make what they had real.

"What do you need to figure out who's behind this elaborate operation?" Hetty asked, breaking into the jumble of emotions crowding out every logical thought.

As little as a month ago Hetty's question would have stunned him. He had always been responsible for behind-the-scenes support, not a frontline strategy, but something had shifted in the month he'd been away from the Mission and he didn't even pause before issuing his requirements.

"I need a couple of techs: one to run the searches for me, pulling log files, background, reports, view and modify statistics on every person who was connected to the BSB and the other to do the same on every supervisor, colleague, and report co-author that worked with Craig and Samantha. I need Callen, Sam, Kensi, and Deeks back up here cross-referencing those lists, identifying people with potential links to both areas, no matter how indirect, and checking the background and activities of everyone that search generates. I know they want to be out in the field, investigating, questioning people but we just can't risk showing our hand with Nell still out there."

"And you, Eric? What will you be doing? I'm not fool enough to believe you'll be merely directing the action from the sidelines."

"I'm going to dig into the circular element within the Alpha-Rho code. I know that's the key, I just have to figure out why I feel like I've seen something written on it before now. If I can track that down then maybe I'll be able to figure out what could possibly be so important about one line of code. How it could be necessary to destroy so many lives just to control it."

"Very well, you shall have all of that, on one condition. You will submit to a medical assessment every hour and allow someone to fit a monitoring system to keep track of your vitals now before the team returns. And if any of those tests come back positive I will personally arrange for you to be transferred back to the hospital."

"But -"

"No buts Eric. I will not lose you due to a misplaced sense of complacency. I underestimated the danger to your life once; I will not allow it to happen again. I suggest you make sure you're following every instruction the medical officer gives you."

"Understood."

As Hetty turned away Eric immediately turned his focus back to Nell's one communication with him. He'd meant what he'd told Callen, it wasn't a cry for help but there was one thing that bothered him. One sentence, or more accurately, one word that didn't fit with the rest of the message, because it was unrelated to the Final Fantasy MMORPG. It was just his username Lalafell-Mew, then the unknown letters I-L-U and the number two.

_'Scw-Hyur has successfully fled Ul'dah and settled in Ala Mhigo with the assistance of Roegadyns Naest and Nduin. Limsa remains on guard but Alay-Hyur are well protected in sector eight, chamber nine, astral five and no Highlanders have taken note. I will lead as a Mi'qote, Keeper of the Moon until Dalamud falls. Seek by the Sun, clear my path; I will repel the Garlean Invasion. **Lalafell-Mew, ILU2.'**_

"Now if I could just figure out this last word -" Eric mused aloud, forgetting Hetty hadn't actually left yet.

"I think you'll find it's a common abbreviation, Mr. Beale, which I believe a simple Google search will be able to decipher for you. But it's not a message about the mole Eric, it's a message for you."

"But that abbreviation is I Love -" The words burst from his lips before he was even certain Hetty had finished speaking, confusion warring with both hope and denial as his mind spun with the idea that Nell might actually have said that she loved him.

"I doubt you remember your ambulance ride to the hospital." Hetty's tone was almost gentle despite the gravity of her expression, "but medical personnel are quite meticulous record keepers and I had plenty of time at the hospital to read their reports, which included a notation that a mild sedative was administered intravenously to Chloe Whitman whose distress was manifesting in uncontrollable screaming and crying -"

"I love you daddy. Don't die daddy," Eric said softly, surprising himself as the words he hadn't consciously heard spilled from his memory along with an echo of intense pain.

"Exactly." Hetty's expression was grave as her eyes met his. "I'll send Gloria in with the monitoring equipment once I'm back downstairs. The team will return once Gloria gives the ok, so I suggest you follow her advice."

Knowing there would be no changing Hetty's mind and acknowledging it could hardly make him feel any worse than he already did Eric nodded and watched as Hetty took her leave.

Grateful for the unexpected solitude, Eric took a moment to re-read the forum post in the silence of the empty Ops, figuring it was his last chance before Hetty's medical officer arrived and the team returned. His mouth was dry as he reached the final line and so it was in a whisper that he offered his vow, “I love you too, Nell. And I'm not going to rest until I've got you back in my arms and I can tell you just how much I love you.”

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Eric glanced at his watch, noting he only had 25 minutes before Gloria would be back with another one of her magic pills that somehow took the edge off his pain without that hazy feeling he usually got with anything stronger than Advil. He had to admit both the pills and the drip had made him feel significantly better. Even though the hourly breaks had driven him mad at first, after the first four he'd even come to accept those as a chance to refocus his ideas. But right at this moment, he wished he could push it back, just this once. He was almost sure he'd finally hit pay dirt. The sooner he could verify that and inform the rest of the team, the better.

On a hunch, Eric had taken strings of code from the blackmail note and the discrepancy Craig Hayes had noted in Alpha-Rho during his training and run a series of multi-factor searches on reports written before Craig had been murdered. It was a long shot given the search alone had taken more than four hours, a testament to the sheer volume of paperwork generated by the training arm of the Bent Protocol and a not-so-subtle reminder that they needed a new search algorithm. He wished now that he and Nell had made more time for working through their maintenance wishlist rather than constantly being diverted off to wade through the thousands of mid-level intelligence communiqués whenever they had a spare moment. Yes, they were the perfect balance of tech and analytic prowess and could therefore do it faster and more accurately than the mid-level intelligence analysts could, but it shouldn’t have ever been allowed to take the place of their other important duties like improving the systems that Ops ran on.

Initially, all the search had found was a basic memo to the training department from Craig Hayes, making note of a discrepancy within a training exercise; a duplicating line that was being transposed by surrounding code and suggesting the following efficiency. What that memo did not include was the original context of the code, having been automatically generated by the training module it listed only what number line it was and the ID numbers of the two splinter tasks which future trainees would carry out to validate either one solution or the other. Because the training program was essentially a front for the Bent Protocol it had been designed to never released multiple strings of any code, so all the memo had listed was the duplicating line.

But the search had finally turned up a ten-page report on something called the 'Overlap and Add Method' and on page seven; Eric found what he'd been so sure must be there. The explanation was buried in a mass of poorly articulated coding theorem – which explained why he remembered reading something about a self-duplicating or circular element of code but couldn’t remember the context he'd previously read it in. Eric read it through twice to be sure he wasn't just conjuring up the answer he desperately wanted. Then he'd set up an isolation pen within the network and taken the basic instructions set out in the report to create his own circular line of code. With caution, Eric added a simplified asymmetric block cipher and a command requiring an alphanumeric output and hit run. What he got was a twenty-slot code where between one and eight slots were empty but the placement of and the number of the empty slots changed constantly meaning no external code-breaking device would be able to generate the password because the blanks were generated independent of the alphanumeric combination so an external system, even if it managed to identify the exact letter and number combination required wouldn't be able to predict which ones it had to leave out when submitting the code. A protection this complex would most likely be protecting something very valuable like preventing a digital income stream from being spoofed and diverted offshore to a personal account and the only way to circumvent it would be to alter the circular element. Which meant you needed someone who was able to pick out the circular element from thousands of lines of code and was able to transpose it. Eric was willing to bet _that_ was the protocol that Bethany had noticed was missing from the Alpha-Rho code he'd presented her with. The same difference Ben Mastin had been referring to when he'd reported to Kensi on the ordering of the elements surrounding the duplicating string of code.

A shiver ran down Eric's spine as he realized how close Ben Mastin and his wife had come to meeting the same fate as Bethany's parents – or worse. Because this time instead of needing Bethany, who couldn't be found, they would have had all they needed within Ben's all too nimble mind. The only difference was that neither Ben nor his attackers had any idea that the solution they needed was so close at hand. Without the knowledge Eric had just acquired, on how the circulating element worked, the fact that Ben knew what elements had been re-arranged or removed during testing was no threat to either himself or NCIS.

To run the search, Eric had gotten the exact discrepancy Craig had identified in training from the report Ben Mastin had prepared for Kensi. Kensi had referred to it as 'a log' when she'd been talking to them in Bakersfield, but it could only mean the splinter reports, they were the closest thing to a list of changes that the Bent Protocol had, and even then you had to compare the two reports by hand. Hetty must have used her set of admin codes for the training program to give Ben access to the splinter reports. Ben would have also needed Eric's security codes to run the diagnostic testing on the reports to resolve the conflict between the splinter reports (which was the point of the security access) but in this case, as the changes Craig had suggested had obviously been accepted in the round of splinter testing, access to the reports was all that Ben needed.

Hetty and Eric having access to the splinter reports was safe enough during testing because those systems were not operational and after the code had been put into use, its location was kept secure by the system Eric and Nell had spent 48 hours unlocking. But the mole already had the location. What they’d needed was the contents of the splinter reports. Realizing that breaking into the training system was far too dangerous without both Eric and Hetty's security codes, they'd identified Craig as being the one who'd submitted the original change and gone after him. What they hadn’t realized was that it wasn’t the tech operator but his daughter who could identify and transpose the code they need.

Which meant the danger to Ben Mastin wasn't past! He'd check on Ben's security detail just as soon as he figured out who wrote the 'Overlap and Add Method' report. After all, there was no point rushing off before he knew who Ben needed protection from. Taking a steadying breath Eric scrolled back up the document letting the words blur as he sped back to the first page, looking for just one thing – the author's name. And there it was, exactly where it was supposed to be, Mitchell Prentice, Director of Technical Training. It was probably crazy to think that it might not have been there, but it seemed too easy. Surely a mole who was capable of so much planning; the original blackmail, the attack on Bethany's parents, and later the attacks on the Mastins, the backup NCIS team, and Eric and Nell - all to acquire a very complex piece of code, surely that person wouldn't leave their name on a damning report. Surely –

Eric's train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt as a pulse oximeter was suddenly clipped to his finger and he saw an infrared thermometer rapidly approaching his ear from the corner of his eye.

"Gloria." Eric sighed; he'd been so focused he'd completely forgotten about Gloria.

"That's ma name." The snappy reply came just seconds before Eric felt the thermometer enter his ear giving him just enough time so as not to flinch the way he had the first time he'd been caught unawares by her presence.

"Now hold still while I attach all these, and you'll be free before you know it."

Eric had come to hate that phrase. She said exactly the same thing every time but then again he said exactly the same thing back every time too.

"My name is Eric Beale, and I was born September 18, 1982. I'm in Los Angeles, California, we're at The Mission and this is Ops. The current president is Barak Obama. I was injured in a shooting. I had two bullet holes, a collapsed lung, and major surgery but I no longer have a concussion."

"In that case, you can swallow two of these pills, down this glass of Sustagen." Eric winced; the packet might _say_ it tasted like chocolate milk, but he now knew better. "And another of Hydrolyte, but first count backward from 100 in 6s –"

"I thought it was 7s!" Eric cut in, looking at her properly for the first time since she'd arrived by his side.

"I’ve run this test so many times in one day I think even a dementia patient could have learned how to count back from 100 by 7," Gloria added tartly but cracked a rare smile at Eric's scandalized expression.

"94, 88, 82, 76, 70, 64, 58, 52, 46 - " Eric didn't even have to think about it and sure enough, once he'd gotten below 50 she handed him the Sustagen and his pain pills, his signal that he was allowed to stop counting.

Chasing the Sustagen with blackberry Hydrolyte was possibly even more disgusting than just having the Sustagen by itself but at least Gloria had the good sense to leave a bottle of water behind as she packed up her gear and promised to be back in an hour.

Not bothering to suppress a shudder at the revolting flavor combination of his liquid diet Eric grabbed the bottle of water Gloria had left and raised it to his lips. But before he had a chance to take a sip of pure, unadulterated water he saw something that had escaped his notice the first time he'd looked at the document's headers – the date of creation.

"Kensi!" Eric called out, forgetting the need for water altogether as he put both hands on his keyboard and began typing rapidly, setting up the complex search parameters in code rather than relying on the existing algorithms.

"What's up, Eric?"

"You've found something?"

Looking up Eric grinned as he saw that it was not just Kensi who'd abandoned the corner of Ops they'd requisition but Sam, Callen, and Deeks who were suddenly crowded around the island in front of him.

"What date was of that report of Craig's that had the three discrepancies?" Eric asked, holding back until he could confirm his suspicions.

"Wednesday, May 12," Kensi said without even glancing at her notes.

"Mitch Prentice published a report the week before, May 7, a detailed technical analysis of a method called 'Overlap and Add' which dissected the use and creation of circular elements like the one Craig identified in Alpha-Rho."

"That's one hell of a coincidence," Kensi said, "someone starts discussing the circular element and suddenly Craig goes from never making a single error in his reports to three in one report."

"Mitch Prentice," Callen frowned, "that's the Director of Training, right? He oversees the entire training department and when Craig identified the problem with the code in Alpha-Rho the report would have landed on his desk first."

"So, you think that's our guy?" Deeks asked eagerly, they were all ready to have a physical person to hunt down after all of the paper-pushing of the past few weeks.

Sam shook his head, "It's too neat. Guys like this, who blackmail and plan, they don't leave their name on damning documents."

"Could someone else have created the document in his name?" Kensi asked.

Eric thought about it and nodded, "We have to be dealing with someone from the Tech department or with a Tech background, there’s no one else who’d have any chance of discovering a loophole like this. So yeah, it's doable. "

"So, we have to link Mitch to the Bellington Supply Base somehow," Callen said, "he must have really pissed someone off – "

"Enough to frame him for murdering Bethany’s parents and assaulting and attempting to murder Eric? Yeah, that's one angry guy, right there." Deeks put in, oblivious to Kensi's wince. They'd all been trying not to mention the fact Eric had nearly died.

Eric was past noticing, his mind whirling with possible avenues of investigation. "Have you still got that friend in HR Kens? I'm thinking it'd be good to sound them out as to whether there has been any tension in the Tech department; anyone missing out on promotions, talking about leaving –"

"Alex? Sure, I can go down right now, he's always ready for a chat." Kensi smiled, "Especially if I bring donuts, that should guarantee I get some good gossip."

"Does anything you do not revolve around food?" Deeks asked getting ready to follow her.

"Deeks!"

Deeks took one last look as Kensi disappeared before turning his attention back to Eric, waiting for him to continue.

"I need you to figure out what happened in April or May – there must be a reason why things suddenly escalated and I'm starting to think it must have been something big. We need an in with payroll, I don't want to leave a trail so I need you to put a USB key in one of their computers so I can spoof their login details to take a look-see at the payroll for Bellington Supply Base."

"Why is it always Kensi and I who get pimped out?" Deeks did his best to look hard done by.

"You've been moaning about your lack of bonuses, here's your opportunity to actually ask someone about it. No one said anything about hitting on anyone," Sam said pointedly.

"And us?" Callen asked, bemused by Deeks' reaction.

"You've been looking into the trainer in charge when Craig and Samantha Hayes were inducted right?"

"Yeah." Callen agreed, listing what they knew about her, which was precious little, "Celia Blake: thirty, single, been here for six years this Christmas and never had any complaints against her. Even her bank accounts look clean, pays her mortgage, keeps on top of her credit, and puts a little away in savings every month but it doesn't add up to much."

"Well, she's just arrived. Her shift is 5.30 pm till 12:30 am so I think it would be a good time for a council inspection, to see if she's got any surveillance equipment and if she doesn't –"

" – Hetty's given us the go-ahead to have a look around." Callen finished.

"If you take a strong signal jammer that will give you time to check for recording devices without ending up on any, but it'll also knock out your link to us as soon as you turn it on. Well, that and everyone else's devices in the houses either side."

"And if she does have surveillance?" Sam asked.

"Plant a couple of our bugs and get back here so we don't risk spooking her."

"But you don't think she will do you?" Callen asked assessingly.

"No. She's always been really against home surveillance, which is why she chose to be in training rather than operations." Eric sighed, "I trained her for that job, so I don't want it to be her. But I'm not leaving any stone unturned so if she's got something to hide, you're going to find it."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: You’ll Find the Devil in the Details**

**.**

**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

**.**   
  


“Well, I think we can safely assume it’s not Celia Blake,” Callen said as he and Sam entered Ops looking hot and tired. 

“Saying she doesn’t approve of home surveillance might just be the understatement of the year,” Sam added.

“Yeah, as far as we can tell there was not a single piece of technology in that entire house which could potentially be bugged let alone actually record anything. No landline, no cable, no Wi-Fi, no radio - the house looked like it was from the 1930s. Not even a TV,” Callen agreed.

“It was weird,” Sam said shaking his head as he remembered the museum-like feel the house had to it.

“And based on lack of cell reception I was able to get inside I’m guessing there might be a reason she chose such an old brick house. But we managed to install the bugs with sightlines to the windows and put the receiver at close distance so we should manage to still monitor her, although at this point it hardly seems worth it.” 

“Yeah, but how could someone so technical live somewhere without any technology? That’s got to be a bit suspicious, right?”

“Being in the intelligence game seems to make people swing one way or the other, constantly surveying their environment and everything in it for threats or blocking out the world entirely and creating a safe and unsurveilled space,” Eric said with a sigh.

Once the unique qualities of the people who made up his department had interested him, amused him even. Back when the safety of working in Ops had been an unquestioned constant, the danger of the field being safely restrained behind the lens of the camera whose feed they were monitoring. Today Celia was just one more dead-end. One more path which didn’t lead him to what he needed, to make it safe for Bethany and Nell to come home.

Using his tablet to draw a fat red line through Celia’s name on the big screen up in Ops Eric mentally switched gears. There was no time for regret, only action.

Sam and Callen, who’d continued their conversation, debating the pros and cons of hyper-vigilance versus joining the dark ages turned to face Eric as though he’d spoken.

Taking as deep a breath as his damaged rib cage would allow, Eric began to compile everything they knew so far. Selecting a course of action from the options swirling around his head Eric didn’t even think before handing down his assessment of what needed to happen next. The mantle of leadership sat more easily on his shoulders with every passing hour that Nell and Bethany were out there, relying on him to find a way to make it safe for them to return.

“Callen, Sam – I need to know everything we’ve got on Mitch Prentice. The search I set up has been transferring all of the digital data we have on him onto your workstations, you’ll see it’s dividing itself up into folders depending on the type of record and you should see some things are already flagged but what I need are your eyes looking for things that don’t fit. If it’s him, there won’t be any blatant digital footprints for us to follow, if anything it should look just slightly too clean. I need to know what’s not there.”

“On it.”

It was a sign of how much had shifted since Eric’s attack that neither Callen nor Sam looked surprised that Eric was giving directions the way Callen normally would. Expecting them to rise to the type of challenge Nell and Eric faced on almost every mission, spot the clue that’s buried with barely a whiff of smoke to trace. As much as Eric wanted to send Callen and Sam out to Mitch’s house the risk was far too great given that he’d been implicated by the ‘Overlap and Add’ report. If Mitch was being framed, then you could guarantee that his house would already be wired and they could be tipping off the real mole. And if he was the real mole. Eric shuddered to think what might be waiting for them if he was. You don’t need to be an explosives expert to make your house lethal, in fact, if it was merely electrical wiring it would be significantly more dangerous. They didn’t have sniffer dogs that detected live current running through floors and lasers were considerably harder to detect when they weren’t centered around an obvious jewel case. No, whatever role Mitch had in this, a visit to his house would be very dangerous indeed. 

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

Eric had to submit to another two visits from Gloria before Kensi and Deeks returned to Ops. The second visit bringing with it a visible change in his drip which had, up until that point, been limited to antibiotics and clear fluids. The bag, which was slowly transferring its contents into his body, this time held a much more precious commodity – his own blood, stored by NCIS against just such a disaster. Although Eric had regularly donated to his store, as he was required to do, it wasn’t until he’d seen his ID number clearly printed on the sample as Gloria had reset all of the machines that he realized just how much faith Hetty was placing in Gloria’s expertise and the magnitude of what he’d asked of her in allowing him to remain out of hospital. One did not casually transfuse blood. Eric was glad that, for once, there was no mention – jesting or otherwise – of his need for constant medical attention. Some things were best left unsaid and he valued the respect they paid him in allowing his unfitness to work to remain unremarked on. 

Kensi and Deeks entered with a muted clatter, while their voices were pitched low there was no mistaking the endless back-and-forth banter they exchanged. In some ways, their entrance seemed more pronounced as if somehow the lack of volume amplified the impact of their gestures. In the relative stillness of Ops, their entrance acted like a catalyst, drawing Callen, Sam, and Eric out of their individual tasks to hear what progress had been made. As Callen and Sam joined them beside Eric at the Island, Eric decided their discussion on the best food for producing a favorable reception and therefore, the best gossip, could wait. Yesterday he wouldn’t have minded, might even have been curious to pick up some tips, but not today and possibly not tomorrow either.

“Kens? Deeks? I need those access keys and then we need to know what you found out?” Eric asked, managing to hold out his hand without wincing.

Eric saw Kensi’s eyes flick up to take in the blood transfusion before darting back to meet his own, as she handed over the two USB drives he’d given them, but if she’d intended to ask him about it she was beaten to it by Deeks who took advantage of Kensi’s momentary hesitation to launch into his story.

“Right. Well, it turns out that Monique in Payroll was only too happy to tell me how much of a headache the Tech teams have been causing since Ops has been out of action. They’ve spread out a lot of the staff over-flows to different locations and the training isn’t happening fast enough so people are staying on training wages longer than the system is calibrated for and they’re having to manually over-ride most of the pays. Consequently, it took quite a while to get her to think further back than last fortnight let alone six months ago. But I think once you line it up with what Kensi found out –”

“There have been a number of major power plays and roles shifting hands,” Kensi cut in. “Five of the biggest facilities, including the Bellington Supply Base, have done major restructures and they’ve had to draw heavily on people who used to be heads of training for information security and different levels of off-site IT management to be acting in those roles while they sorted it all out. Almost every senior training manager has had an active role at one or more of the five facilities and they were mostly still having to manage active training at least one day per week to provide assistance to all of their deputies who’d stepped into their roles. And from what I could tell without asking directly, Bellington had their first set of acting directors in April.”

“Meaning they had unparalleled access, being across both on-site and training, at the worst possible moment, when Craig Hayes seemingly unremarkable discovery during testing suddenly get dredged up again as being worthy of inclusion in a large scale technical report,” Eric said grimly, seeing it all start to fit together.

“And it wasn’t just titles up for grabs. According to Monique, we’re talking 25-50% pay increases if you got one of those key jobs at Bellington Supply Base compared to what they were earning as heads of training. Apparently, in training, it’s a big group at the third tier management level and almost all of the roles being created were second or first tier so everyone was vying for a chance to show they should be the ones who moved up.” Deeks added.

Eric sighed, he’d been hoping that either Kensi or Deeks would come back with two, maybe three clear suspects who’d had access and opportunity, now it sounded like instead of narrowing their suspect pool they’d just blown it wide open. As he listened he set up the searches which would drill down through payroll and HR records creating a list of everyone who’d had the opportunity. Every detail he could draw out of either Kensi or Deeks would make that search more accurate but it definitely wasn’t going to be the quick fix he’d hoped for. 

.

.

**. .:. .. .: Highway Diner, California:. .. .:. .**

.

.

Nell took a sip of her coffee and winced. Every time she got caught up reading a document she would notice her coffee cup in her peripheral vision and take a sip without thinking, exactly the way she did in Ops or at home. Except this time, it was definitely not freshly brewed coffee Eric had made, or even the less desirable, but equally effective, instant her mum used to make her. Nope, this was small, side of the highway diner coffee and it was nasty. Three-day-old engine oil seemed like the most obvious substitution. Making no attempt to hide her disgust Nell pushed the cup further away, hoping that at least if it was beyond the sugar bowl she’d at least have time to question her movement if she reached for it again.

“Do you want some of my milkshake?”

For a moment the thin wall Nell had erected around the grief which threatened to crush her, cracked and threatened to crumble. She could feel the anxiety and pain welling up inside her and the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Eyes which had been red and raw this morning in the bathroom mirror, she could still feel the faint pink trails her tears of the night before had left as they’d burnt their way across her cheeks. There were so many tiny reminders of Eric, so memories that slammed into her without warning, catching her off guard.

With an effort, Nell smiled. “It looks really good but no thanks, I’ve -” Nell paused unsure of quite how to finish that sentence, she couldn’t exactly say ‘I’ve got my coffee, which is delicious’ because Bethany would almost certainly call her on the lie and they didn’t need to draw any more attention to themselves. With an internal sigh, she ended lamely, “I’ve had enough to eat for now.”

“But it’s not eating, Mom, it’s drinking,” Bethany pointed out, quick-witted as ever.

“I think you know what I mean,” Nell said, managing a real smile at last, “How are your pancakes? I’m pretty full.”

Full wasn’t quite the right word for it, she hadn’t felt hungry to start with, quite the opposite. She’d nearly choked on her first bite of fruit toast. It tasted like ash and she’d only managed to continue to chew and swallow the next 17 mouthfuls of toast because she wasn’t going to be any good to anyone if she ended up fainting from exhaustion and hunger. It still felt like lead in her stomach but at least she wasn’t likely to become hypoglycemic. 

“They’re okay, I guess,” Bethany said dejectedly, pushing the edge of a pancake with her fork. “But daddy made better ones.”

Nell swallowed reflexively, trying to clear the sudden lump in her throat. Nell had wished the dinner hadn’t had pancakes on the menu but she couldn’t exactly deny Bethany something which might be comforting just because all Nell could think about was the pancakes Eric had made them. And given that Bethany had eaten at least half of the large serving, it probably wasn’t the cook’s fault that nothing seemed to appeal to Nell right now.

“I know,” Nell said on a sigh, “but I’m sure he’ll be proud of you making such a good effort to eat them and I’ll try to make something better for dinner, okay?”

“Now that I’ve finished you’re going to let me help, aren’t you? You said I had to finish my pancakes and I know I’ve only eaten half but - well I am finished, that’s the same thing isn’t it?” Bethany looked up at Nell beseechingly, the tablet which had been safely stowed in Nell’s shoulder bag now clutched tightly in her arms.

Nell’s eyelids slammed shut as she fought for control. The thought that she didn’t want to have to raise Bethany alone echoed through her head like thunder. Nell felt hot tears fill her eyes and rage burn in her stomach, it was so much harder on her own.

A small hand touched her cheek. As if from a distance she felt the table vibrate slightly as something solid was dropped onto it and then she felt Bethany’s small body press into hers as a small arm wrapped its way around her neck, holding her close.

“I’m sad too.”

Nell’s arms had automatically wrapped themselves around Bethany, holding her close but it was the whispered words that brought Nell back to the present. Back to Bethany. She opened her eyes, surprised that the tears which had threatened had retreated, and found her voice steady and calm.

“I know. But we’ll be okay. You and I are going to solve this and then we’re going to go and get him back, okay?” Nell managed a smile as she looked into Bethany’s eyes, relieved to find them free from tears. 

“Okay!” Bethany said hugging Nell tighter with a grin.

Bethany’s small smile was infectious and Nell felt her strength return. Bethany and Eric needed her and she wasn’t going to give in. With a new determination, Nell pulled back slightly so she could see Bethany more clearly. She had just thought of a way in which Bethany could help her dig for the missing pieces she needed.

“Remember that game dad had where he’d show you a sequence of coded instructions and you had to try and make up one which would do the exact opposite? Well, I need you to do something like that again. Why don’t you go up to the counter and find out whether there are any donuts and if there are you can order us some while I set it up?”

Bethany’s smile this time was broad and full of excitement. Nell felt Bethany’s lips brush across her cheek and then she was wriggling away, getting herself tangled as she made to rush from their booth up the counter. Knowing she wouldn’t have much time before Bethany had ordered and eaten her donuts and be chomping on the bit ready for the ‘game’ she’d been promised, Nell grabbed the tablet and opened the source code program Eric had developed. Keeping one eye on Bethany who was climbing up onto one of the high stools at the counter, Nell began to type rapidly. The code flowed from her fingers as naturally as handwriting to everyone else. There was no small irony in getting Bethany to crack the codes which Nell herself had written to bolster the protection of the human resources databases. She’d written the patch because she’d identified a tiny fissure that might one day develop into a full-blown back-door-entrance. If only she hadn’t been so efficient, she could have exploited it herself. But it was always easier for someone else to crack your code than it was to defeat it yourself because you needed that contrasting logic that identified routes you hadn’t even imagined and it was those routes that often revealed the tiny weak spots which when subjected to brute force, could sometimes get in. Indeed, it was why she and Eric together had created unparalleled security systems in their time running Ops. By testing and reinforcing each other’s code they had a near-perfect batting average, but the true proof of that rule was the Bent Protocol itself. 

Nell’s fingers moved like lightning over the keyboard but her eyes never left Bethany, watching her as she chatted to the waitress while she waited for their donuts. While the distance from where they were staying, isolation, and Wi-Fi were the dominant factors that had determined what diner Nell chose, the sign on the door reading ‘donuts made fresh when ordered’ had made her smile as they entered and she’d tucked that knowledge away in the back of her mind as a possible treat for Bethany as the morning wore on. 

Nell was just finishing the last two lines as Bethany turned back to their booth, a plate piled with hot jam donuts clutched tightly in her hands. Nell’s spirits rose seeing the look of uncomplicated delight on Bethany’s face and for the first time that day, she thought she might actually enjoy eating something for a change.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

**.**

It was nearly two hours later when the donuts had been reduced to a pile of cinnamon sugar and some jam-covered napkins. The napkins had been sacrificed in an attempt to save Bethany’s Darth Vader shirt (she’d insisted on wearing it again despite Nell’s protest that they did have a change of clothes each) from the hot torrent of jam that had erupted from one of the donuts in Bethany’s haste to enjoy her prize.

Nell had been right in her assumption that she’d be able to stomach a donut and she’d found herself eating them with almost as much enthusiasm as Bethany did. The sugar hit and the companionable tapping of the tablet’s keyboard beside her had enabled her brain to focus properly on the task at hand, figuring out which of the four people she’d identified - Luke Isaac, Tom Bright, Mitch Prentice, and Cecilia Blake - were the key to unraveling this whole mystery. She was working off the OPs Server Image Eric had created before they moved to Bakersfield. Trawling through access logs, view and modify statistics, even drilling down as far as looking into individual’s keystroke log files, looking for any tiny indication that someone had tampered with the files from within. She knew that somewhere here there was a series of discrepancies that would lead her to the mole. It was, after all, how she had found those four names in the first place. After Eric had left for work she had had time to run a cross-referencing algorithm to identify whose accounts had been most active in the period between when Bethany’s father, Craig, had reported the discrepancy in the Alpha-Rho training module to the time of her parents’ deaths. She was looking for people who had some connection, however tenuous, to both the training protocols and the Bellington-Supply-Base (BSB). The search had been both more comprehensive and more time-consuming when she’d been accessing the live system through their Mini-Ops center. The search had generated the results less than an hour before all hell had broken loose and because she’d also been monitoring the news outlets to ensure that no further leaks like the one in The Economist she’d barely had enough time to commit the four names to memory and write the necessary code to do deep and comprehensive background checks and activity analysis into all of them. The searches had been less than 10% complete when she’d gotten Eric’s distress call and realized they were completely out of time.

This time she had tried to optimize the searches, she didn’t have continuous secure network access or the full force of the Mini-Ops center. She had highway diner level Wi-Fi (which, in all fairness, had turned out to be faster and more stable than many home Wi-Fi networks) and the best security she could rig up without creating a data bottleneck for everyone else which would be sure to have the managers switching the router off and on again trying to resolve the problem. There was also only so much time you could spend at one place before you started attracting all kinds of attention from the staff. Nell had already decided the best course of action was to leave just when the lunch rush got underway in earnest, figuring it would be the time when her waitress would have the least time to consider how long they’d been there and the flood of new faces would hopefully minimize the chance that the waitress would remember them clearly if anyone ever came asking about them. That meant that at best she and Bethany had another 90 minutes before they needed to pay and clear out.

Nell had been able to find each person’s current title and responsibilities with relative ease. Their full employment history was what she needed to figure out exactly how each of these four people are linked to the BSB. To get that she was going to need to hack the HR department with four very specific brute attacks, it was essential to get the code exactly right because as soon as each one penetrated it would trigger an alert that would pop up on Eric's screen. It would not be a red alert as it would look like it was coming from within NCIS Special Ops itself and using authenticated credentials but she’d be unable to avoid detection completely if she wanted to copy the data in the files she was looking for. But as soon as that discrepancy alert was sent they’d have less than 10 minutes before they needed to off the network and moving away from that location as fast as possible. Not because their location would be easy to track, it would take considerably longer than that if indeed it was possible at all, but the longer she maintained her connection to that Wi-Fi network the more data would be cached, increasing the number of breadcrumbs which might ultimately be used to indicate she had been here.

Nell took the opportunity to review what she knew about each person:

Name: **Mitchell (Mitch) Prentice**

Age: 34 years 4 months

Sex: Male

Designation: Civilian Staff

Department: Technology & Information Security (T&IS)

Position Title: Director of Technical Training

Position Commenced: 2 years 8 months 13 days ago*

Site: The Mission

Name: **Cecilia Blake**

Age: 30 years 2 months

Sex: Female

Designation: Civilian Staff

Department: Technology & Information Security (T&IS)

Position Title: Training Officer for T&IS Aptitude and Initiation Phase II

Position Commenced: 5 years 6 months 3 days ago

Site: The Mission

Name: **Tom Bright**

Age: 28 years 9 months

Sex: Male

Designation: Civilian Staff

Department: Technology & Information Security (T&IS)

Position Title: Off-site Digital Security, Assistant Director

Position Commenced: 2 years 8 months 3 days ago*

Site: The Mission

Name: **Luke Isaac**

Age: 21 years 11 months

Sex: Male

Designation: Civilian Staff

Department: Technology & Information Security (T&IS)

Position Title: On-site Physical and Digital Information Security Director

Position Commenced: 8 months 10 days ago*

Site: Bellington Supply Base

Nell sighed as she noted the stars next to the time since three of the men’s positions had commenced, it meant that at one or more points during that time they had spent a significant period in an acting role instead of or in addition to the listed position. It could also indicate that at one time they held that role in a junior or joint capacity. That was exactly why she needed to get access to their full HR files so that she could track their every career move, she had a feeling that in this case, the devil was in the detail.

With Bethany’s help, Nell had a complex multi-point attack ready in 37 minutes, there was just enough finesse to ensure the only alarms it could trigger would be Eric’s. He’d built layers of encryption which were designed specifically to detect and monitor people using inside information to break in. Invisible from the inside they’d caught more than one would be a mole who’d been selling knowledge that could lead to the identification of potential vulnerabilities. In the back of Nell’s mind cogs were turning on future added layers of security but she silenced them with a steely determination as the last element of her program came together.

The moment had come. Nell typed: ‘BEGIN’ and watched as the clock began to count down, three minutes ticking down, second by second.

Nell smiled, the hunt was on in earnest now and when she found them there’d be hell to pay.


	15. Here Is Gone

**Chapter 15: Here Is Gone**

**.**

**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

**.**

Eric had received the silent notification on his smartwatch when Nell’s coordinated attacks on the Human Resources department began and watched with interest what files and indexes had been targeted. He made no move to stop or trace her. He gave no signal to the rest of the team that she had come back online. He’d known that she would break back in. He would be worried if she _hadn’t_ because that would mean she was completely abandoning all of their contingency plans and taking herself and Bethany so far off the grid that they might never be able to get them back. 

He’d considered adding a message into the file structures within the HR system but had grudgingly decided against it. He was already concealing 90% of what he knew about Nell’s whereabouts, intentions, and actions. It was in direct violation of every personal and professional code he had sworn allegiance to but there were still so many variables he couldn’t control and his loyalty had shifted in the past 5 weeks. Nell and Bethany’s safety had become his only priority. Which is why he was following behind Nell’s brute force attacks and systematically erasing the tiny breadcrumb trails which led back to an external breach. They wouldn’t have been enough for anyone to know it had been Nell but they were still evidence that _someone_ had come in from the outside. This way his trail carefully masked hers, re-orienting it to lead back to a single account on the NCIS system, his. 

He knew the exact consequences of his actions. That this, especially in combination with the physical hacks he had instructed Kensi and Deeks to carry out, would permanently and irreparably destroy his security clearance and his ability to work for any government agency ever again. It could even see him end up with an ankle monitor and an EMP-like emitter which would prevent him from accessing any digital technology for the next decade. He knew Nell would hate it, that she’d want to rail against the unfairness of it, but they’d talked for hours about their own private contingency plans and in the end, they’d promised that if it came to it they’d do everything they could to ensure only one of them would take the fall. No matter what else happened, they would do whatever it took to ensure Bethany had everything she wanted or needed for the rest of her life. Something which could only be achieved if at least one of them were able to keep their jobs. It made sense for Eric to be the one to take the fall. Thanks to his work for the private sector in college, he had enough patents and shares in tech startups to be financially sound even if this operation prevented him from ever working again and when it came down to it - as much as he loved technology and was good at it, he _could_ give it up forever if he had to. There were complex enough puzzles out there in offline spaces to keep him sane and part of him had always liked the idea of just being a stay-at-home parent. Whereas Nell was the best intelligence agent of their generation. She had a gift for it that went so far beyond any set of technical skills that could be taught or learned. To deny her access to this world completely? It was unthinkable. A cruelty both to her and to the Nation who would never know that she was in the shadows, just outside their perception, protecting them. She’d be the next director and her success would be enough for Eric. 

As he moved through the file structures leaving the digital equivalent of large muddy footprints Eric realized that what he’d initially seen as four separate brute force attacks was actually much more elaborate. As he swept away Nell’s breadcrumbs he realized that among the debris of the hack were tiny fragments of code he recognized. Code that had his own very distinct style, as unique and identifiable to the trained eye as his handwriting. Code that, as he watched, started to form chains across the four separate HR files, building executable strings that exploited the features of the HR software it had been deposited into. There was an edge of horror that sliced through his admiration when he realized he’d been wrong when he had assumed this was a simple fact-finding mission. It was phase one of a calculated attack. Nell was setting a trap and he needed to get the _hell_ out of the HR system before it was complete. He knew Nell would have done everything she could to make sure Eric couldn’t accidentally set it off but with a mole on the inside, it would need to have a hair-trigger. As Eric pulled out, slamming the digital doors behind him, he felt a haptic alarm start to pulse on his wrist. Knowing Nell’s penchant for morse code messages, he’d been waiting for it to start from the moment he’d noticed her hack. 

“.--. -… --- -..-”

It took only four letters for that happy glow of anticipation to be replaced with icy fear. Distantly Eric was aware of the oldest machine in OPs coming to life and translating to sound, for the rest of the team, the message resonating against his skin on repeat. 

“.--. -… --- -..-” 

“-.. -. -../.... .-. / ... -.-- ... - . -- .-.-.- ” 

“.--. .- -. -.. --- .-. .- ... / -... --- -..- .-.-.-” 

“.... .-. / ... -.-- ... - . -- .-.-.- / -.. -. -.. .-.-.- / .--. -... --- -..- .-.-.- / -.. -. -..” 

.--. .- -. -.. --- .-. .- ... / -... --- -..- .-.-.-” 

“.--. -… --- -..-” 

**.**

**. .:. .. .: Undisclosed Location, California :. .. .:. .**

**.**

Nell heaved a sigh of relief as they arrived back at their apartment having taken the most circuitous route she could justify on leaving the diner. Willing away the guilt of needing to keep working rather than spending time with Bethany, Nell set her up in front of Disney+ and pulled out her tablet. She’d had a flash of inspiration while Bethany had been finding a way to breach the HR firewall at the diner. As well as taking the information she needed during the hack she’d left a tangled web of traps in case her next phase spooked anyone into attempting to hide the only real link left to figure out who this mole was. She wasn’t sure if anyone other than Eric would understand the true nature of the morse code message she’d left them. Creating Pandora's Boxes was something she and Eric had often talked about. Having mini switches within the NCIS systems that, if flicked, would unleash all manner of hell on any person devious or foolhardy enough to mess with their systems was very tempting. There was something incredibly galling about traitors and saboteurs, so whenever they had any idea about how to prevent the next one they tended to give it as much time as they could. The only reason they hadn’t progressed their idea of an interconnected web of tripwires hidden within key systems was because the Bent Program had been so successful that their corporate espionage stats had dropped to almost impossibly low levels. Still, she hoped that somehow Eric would get the message that she hadn’t given up and was going to nail the bastard who’d done this to them. She also hoped that Hetty would understand enough of her message to ensure none of the rest of the team disturbed the HR system if Eric wasn’t there. They wouldn’t have the skills to attempt anything subtle but she wouldn’t put it past Kensi or Deeks to try putting a USB into the HR mainframe and using one of Nell’s wizard programs to do a mini brute force attack. If they did, well, let’s just say that skeletons of all kinds would start spilling out of well-sealed closets, and not getting paid automatically would be the least of their problems. 

Nell half hoped that one of her four suspects, Cecilia Blake, Tom Bright, Luke Isaac, or Mitch Prentice would try to change one of those HR files. It would force every computer on the whole NCIS network’s camera to switch on for a single moment, taking a photo of every registered NCIS user at the time of the hack. It would also compare each account’s keystrokes for the last five minutes to the keystrokes of every user ever logged into the NCIS system. Those two factors would help verify the identity of each user. People liked to think that behind a computer terminal they were invisible. What they didn’t realize was that each person had a unique way of typing and using their mouse that, when mapped, could be used as a fingerprint to expose their real identity even if they were logged in with another person’s account. Most people had no memory of the typing test they were given as part of technical orientation, and no memory that they’d agreed to ongoing monitoring of their keystrokes, mouse tracking, and clicks. NCIS made no secret of the fact they were surveilling their staff but even trained operatives seemed to forget it when they believed they were safe inside the physical walls of their headquarters. It was also easier to become complacent when it seemed like no one ever used that data. And if no one used it, that was basically the same as not collecting it, right? This assumption was, of course, completely wrong but Nell and Eric would be the last people to start disabusing NCIS staff of that myth. Not when they relied on it in moments like this. 

**.**

**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

**.**

Eric listened to the beeping of the morse code three times through until he was certain that it was only repeating the original message before breaking the silence that had fallen over the team as they listened together.

“Sam hit the red button on the left of the morse transponder,” Eric said sharply, his words jolting the team out of their semi-mesmerized state. 

“But what does it mean?” Kensi asked, glancing around at the others who looked equally mystified. “I got that it was about the HR system but what does the rest of it mean? Is it some kind of gaming reference?”

“Nothing so obtuse, Miss Blye. It means that Miss Jones is expecting the mole to attempt to plant evidence in the HR system and has set a trap for them,” Hetty said, making them all jump, not having noticed her entry into Ops. “If our mole stumbles into that trap it will set off a chain reaction which would give us a photograph and a GPS location of the person doing the hacking, not just the name attached to the digital account they’re using. It relies on all of the data we collect on every single NCIS employee every day, collating it in such a way to provide us with enough evidence to act immediately to remove that person from play. That is why Mr. Beale and Miss Jones when they first brought me their idea for this novel anti-espionage security measure, named it Pandora's Box. This would be the first time it’s been tested but I have the feeling the results will be _hopeful_.” 

“Can’t we just activate it?” Callen asked frustrated that they were stuck behind a desk when what he wanted was to be out there catching the bastard. “If it’s so effective why just use it as a trap?”

Eric flinched as pain lanced through him, instantly regretting having attempted to lean in to counter the absurdity of Callen’s proposal. He waited impatiently for the black spots to clear from his vision and his breath to stop catching but Hetty’s continued silence seemed designed to allow him time to answer.

“If I set it off now, without a specified target, we risk missing the mole _and_ we’d be burying ourselves under a mountain of potentially useless data for the system to crunch, slowing down the other searches I’m running. The brief glance I got of the code was enough to know that she’s expecting the mole will attempt to clone either a registered HR account or someone with just enough clearance for it to normally fly under our radars. It’s a backup, not a battle plan.” 

“Can’t you just make us something similar? One that’s actually a weapon we can attack with?” Deeks asked, earning him a nod from Callen as Sam and Kensi both opened their mouths clearly about to ask questions of their own. 

“What about -” Sam began.

“Enough.” That single word from Hetty was sufficient to silence the team who seemed to be pressing in closer to Eric with each word. “Miss Jones’ message used the code _DND_ which commonly stands for Do Not Disturb - a warning I expect you _all_ to heed. Mr. Beale has given each of you tasks to keep working on that will narrow down our suspect pool. I suggest you all return to that.”

“Now!” Hetty added when there seemed to be lingering doubts in the eyes of the team.

Once she was sure that they had all returned to their workstations and were focused on the data they were sifting through she turned back to Eric. Watching with resignation as Gloria returned to take down and detach the empty bag of blood and flush out Eric’s cannula before capping it and proceeding on with her usual set of observations.

Hetty waited, picking her moment when Gloria’s necessary tasks created sufficient background noise to have a private word with Eric despite the close proximity of the rest of the team. This time however she made certain to catch his eye before speaking, aware how painful it could be if he was shocked into making an involuntary movement.

"Get in touch with her Eric. I need to know what she knows before it's too late."

Eric's heart lurched. He wanted desperately to hear Nell's voice but with so many breaches, how could he trust that someone inside NCIS’s system wasn't going to follow him right to her?

“Isn't it safer if nobody, not even me, knows exactly where they are?" Eric whispered back, his eyes darting to the team before returning to Hetty’s unrelenting expression. 

"You of all people, Eric know that you don't have to find someone to get a message through. After all,” Hetty said with a distinct undertone of censure, “I may not speak the language of the Final Fantasy gamers but I know a breadcrumb trail when I see one. You know, just by looking at that forum post, which city they’re in and the only reason you don’t have an exact location yet is that you don’t want to risk pulling up the exact coordinates within the NCIS network. If you were to be given one of the secure tablets from your apartment I have no doubt you could provide a street address. We're going to get this bastard and bring Miss Jones and Bethany home safely but _first_ I need to know we can get a message through when the time comes. Understood?”

“Understood,” Eric said as he dropped his eyes to the Island and tried desperately to think how to explain his subterfuge. He might trust Hetty and the rest of their team with his life but he couldn’t trust the NCIS’s network or the NCIS staff in general? No. Whatever naivety he could have been accused of in the past had been ripped off like duct tape over a new graze. 

By the time he looked up from his keyboard, finally ready to make some kind of explanation, there was empty space where Hetty had been. Instead, a tablet he recognized as being from his apartment was sitting on the island beside him. 

Moving slowly Eric pulled the tablet towards him, unlocking each security feature in turn and waiting while it slowly searched for a secure connection to his personal servers. It was an arrangement he’d made with Hetty way back when he first took over Ops. Back when he’d struggled to put aside his distrust of government systems and hadn’t felt safe knowing that every keystroke or voice call he made would be logged forever. Hetty had been willing to sanction one unregistered device that Eric was allowed to bring into and use at the Mission, her personal server alone would be aware when it had been turned on inside the facility, would know when it was being used but not the content of that use. Eric had modified this tablet to keep an internal record of every use. If necessary the log could be used in legal proceedings to verify he hadn’t ever used it to breach National Security but the data contained in that file couldn’t be transferred to any other device, including NCIS servers. With four sets of keen ears around him, he had no intention of attempting a voice call but at least with this tablet, he could safely get a direct message to the private mailbox Nell had promised she’d check if they ever got separated. 

There was a single message from Nell waiting for him when he logged in. Looking at the timestamp she must have sent it the morning after the attack, while he’d been unconscious in the hospital.

**Message Received:** “I’m so sorry we had to leave, praying you made it through. We both got away safely and without injury. Established safehouse. Tell H I will keep looking for answers. Will stay off the grid until it’s safe to come home to you. ILU. N&B.” 

Eric felt almost faint with relief when he saw her message, not knowing for sure that they were safe and unharmed had been killing him. 

**Entered Text:** “Glad you left & stayed safe. Injured but able to reclaim my swivel chair. Morse received, understood, and backstopped from inside. H requesting contact: 213-200-0089. Not safe to return home yet. ILU2. E.”

Eric knew he was stalling. He watched the cursor blink and thought of all the things he wished he could tell Nell but knew he had to stick to the raw facts... 

He was on the verge of hitting send when Kensi suddenly called out from across the room, making everyone look up from their screens. 

“I think I’ve got something.” 

“Put it up on the big screen,” Eric directed, hitting the send button before locking and putting down the secure tablet so he could pick up his NCIS one as the rest of the team made their way over to where he was.

“When I found the letter offering the On-site Physical and Digital Information Security Director position to Luke Isaac. I noticed it had a tiny _v2_ in the footer which must mean that there was an earlier version of the document. Also, when I looked more closely I realized that this letter isn’t offering a permanent position in the level 1 role - it’s extending his 9-month secondment by a further 3-months and then he’ll go back down to his original level 3 role.” 

“What?!” Eric asked stopping writing search terms to look up at Kensi. “But, I remember hearing it was meant to be a permanent full-time position.” 

“It was,” Kensi agreed.

“Wait! Ugh. This must be what Monique in payroll was talking about!” Deeks said dragging a hand through his hair in frustration, forcing himself to remember. “She kept coming back to it, saying the T&IS management didn’t understand how much work was involved in setting someone up at a new pay rate and that if they were going insist it had to be done by close of business one day only to rescind it first thing the next day then they needed to have a better reason than one of the other candidates winning some award no one had ever heard of. It needed to be an Oscar at least, in her opinion.”

“I saw something about that!” Sam said, grabbing the inch-high stack of paper he’d printed after grumbling that he wasn’t made for staring at screens for hours on end. 

“Here,” Sam said, pulling a letter from the stack and reading the highlights aloud as he skimmed. “To the HR department, re the Bellington appointment, yadda yadda yadda... here we go! ‘Tom Bright, up and coming star in my department was recently awarded the Turing Award for Innovation in Security Systems. While I previously put my support behind the appointment of Luke Isaac, I now recommend you consider recognizing Tom’s achievement in this prestigious award. Luke may have initially brought the sequence to our attention but the complex work to document and evaluate this new method was done by myself and Tom. I believe that Tom’s ongoing interest in exploring this new security measure will bring additional accolades to the TI&S department.’ Written by - wait for it - Mitch Prentice.”

“Fifty bucks says the ‘new security measure’ is the Overlap and Add method,” Callen said, shaking his head.

“You could take that to the bank,” Deeks agreed.

“Was he trying to make an enemy for life?” Kensi asked. “I get why Nell set the trap now. If I thought someone had blocked my promotion based on something I’d helped discover then I’d hack into the HR system too. Although, rather than planting evidence I’d probably be there to obliterate with their 401K. Then again, if Tom and Mitch are in this together and wanted to pin all this on Luke then a money trail would be the easiest to fake and payroll has access to all our account details.” 

“It could also be that Mitch suspected something was off about Luke when the shutdown happened - which was just after the promotion was announced,” Callen countered. “He could just be trying to use the award as a way to try to prevent Luke from taking over such a huge responsibility.” 

“So instead of being closer to figuring out who’s targeting Bethany and her parents, it could be any of them?” Deeks groaned. “It sounds like _all three of them_ are in this up to their eyeballs.”

Eric reached up to pull off his glasses as the team tossed around theories. The adrenaline that had kept him going all afternoon was drying up fast and the frustration of having hit yet another dead end was getting to him. He knew he should be contributing to the discussion but it was like the answer he wanted was just out of his reach. He just wanted a moment to close his eyes and _think_.

“...Eric?” 

“Um...” Eric blinked rapidly, head jerking as he tried to focus on the voice - Kensi’s voice. Kensi was speaking to him. He had to focus. “Right, um. What do you need?”

“Callen suggested we call it a night? Short of swapping piles - we’re all out of documents to read and it looks like all your searches are gonna be a while...unless, I mean, it’s your op.” 

“No, it’s fine.” Eric could hear the sharpness in his tone, but he was too damn tired and sore to try to rein it in. 

“It’s not like any of us actually want to go home,” Deeks added quietly, “knowing she’s still out there but…”

Eric sighed, he knows it’s the right move even though he hates it. “We have to trust Nell’s trap. We don’t all have to be here to know the instant someone trips it. Hetty’s set up a bed for me here, so I can - I’ll keep watch on the deep scans. I’d - I’d just be keeping you busy for the sake of it. So, Go. Sleep. We’ll meet back here at -” Eric paused, glancing at his screen and wincing when he saw it was already after 10 PM. “Be back here by oh-five-hundred. The best time to hack is when there’s a natural uptick in logins and the morning crew has a staggered start from four-forty-five which peaks around five-thirty.”

“Alright, you heard the man,” Sam said getting up from his chair and looking pointedly at the others. “G and I will toss for who gets the first watch and switch out in three hours, everyone else sleeps for six.”

“But - I-” Eric protested only to get cut off by Sam again.

“You're the best shot we’ve got of catching this guy, Eric. Callen, Deeks, Kensi, and I are basically interchangeable but if you’re out - we’re all out. So you’re gonna get in that bed and sleep. If anything happens - we’ll wake you.”

“Fine.” Eric wants to be mad but all this talk about sleep is making it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. And it’s gratifying, just this once, to have his role on the team be recognized as indispensable. 

**.**

**. .:. .. .: Undisclosed Location, California :. .. .:. .**

**.**

Nell wished for the third time in ten minutes that she had a more sophisticated setup. Or, at the very least, a proper multi-screen array to connect her tablet to. She’s been trawling through the data she’d pulled off the HR servers for an hour now and without the screen space to sort the documents into areas, it was a nightmare to try to cross-reference it. She was starting to think there was more drama in the middle band of the Technology & Information Security team than in Days of Our Lives. She’d have to speak to Hetty when she got back. All these acting positions and temporary assignments that were _supposed_ to be allowing people to get experience in leadership and build the overall capacity of the team were actually tearing the department apart. The extra money involved seemed to be motivating people to make all kinds of deals behind the scenes, all trying to make sure _they_ got a particular position over someone else. The only person who didn’t seem to have gotten swept up in it was Cecilia Blake. By the looks of it, Cecilia hadn’t even applied for the Bellington position when the various acting positions had come up. Which made the fact that she’d been offered the first secondment very interesting indeed. Fortunately, Nell had grabbed a mirror image of the HR manager and her assistant’s email accounts so she could trace down the offer and the reply Cecilia had sent back. At least they had one person who actually loved their job in training. It was becoming horrifyingly clear just how many people saw it as just a stepping stone to advance their career or headhunt junior staff for their area who they could groom to follow their lead. But just as Nell went to click out of the email exchange she noticed there was another email below it from Cecilia, one that someone had recently deleted. 

_‘Just in case you’re looking for a recommendation, I suggest offering the role to Luke Isaac. He hasn’t gotten much experience in the bigger projects but, despite how it looks on paper - most of the new ideas actually came from him. He’s been passed over so many times that I sometimes wonder when he’ll tire of it. I think if he was given a chance for once, you’d see the kind of results you’re looking for almost immediately.’_

Nell wondered if anyone ever followed up on the thinly veiled criticism of the way that team had been running? Given it had to be retrieved from the trash, it seemed like at least one person wanted it buried. Yet another thing to add to her report for further investigation when all of this was over. There was nothing like being constantly overlooked or underappreciated to make someone question their loyalties. It was almost as much of a red flag in intelligence work as sudden windfalls and big debts. She couldn’t help but wonder if Cecilia’s attempt to shift the team dynamic had helped or if it had already been far too late. She had a sinking feeling it was the latter. 

Flipping on through the files Nell slowly began to put together a timeline of when each of the three men had held various positions which would give them knowledge of Craig Hayes’ training records and the Bellington Supply Base systems. Mitch Prentice’s name kept popping up in sync with Tom Bright’s - each one endorsing or progressing the other’s advancement while neatly cutting Luke out at every turn. Shortly after he’d been given the temporary assignment of Security Director at Bellington Supply Base, Mitch had published the Overlap and Add method paper. Nell hadn’t initially thought those two facts were related, not until the widget she’d been running to cross-check leave and unofficial backfills had thrown up the all-important piece she’d been missing. Cecilia - who usually checked the nightly training reports and summarised them for Mitch had been away on vacation, leaving Luke in charge of that job at the crucial time when Craig Hayes reported the circular element in the Alpha-Rho program. Either, Luke had been really bad at that job and so after he was gone Mitch reviewed all of the training logs, found the report of the circular element, and wrote the paper - _or_ Luke had reported it to Mitch, perhaps even highlighted in the summary why it might be important, and Mitch had intentionally sat on that information until Luke started in his acting position and Mitch could safely claim the find as his own. Whether it was Tom and Mitch colluding or Luke striking out alone, Nell was fairly sure within her own mind she could at least rule out Cecilia.

Looking purely at the HR and TI&S performance stats, the permanent position at BSB should have been Luke’s without question. The man was almost as productive and innovative as Ben Mastin was when he’d been put on the fast track through to Eric’s team. Mitch also had robust performance stats for the two years he’d held a Director role. They weren’t extraordinary, but they were consistently high. By contrast, she wondered what exactly Mitch saw in Tom Bright’s work to justify constantly recommending him for things? He worked hard and definitely wasn’t afraid of overtime but his stats fluctuated a lot and he was always a co-author, never a sole instigator of innovations. There were also a few of Tom’s flashier methods that made Nell wonder just how long he’d been out of the hacking game before applying to NCIS and whether he’d ever truly stopped. Not that being a former black hat prevented you from succeeding within their line of work. Quite the opposite had been true for Eric. Then again, she’d never met anyone as altruistic as Eric. He was infamous in hacking circles for always securely locking the door on his way out - preventing anyone else from using his method to get in and destroy the joint before the company had a chance to fix it. In general, hackers were ego-driven, always pushing themselves to pull off the next ‘impossible’ thing to be able to brag about their success. They tended to react rapidly to any perceived challenger muscling-in on what they thought of as their territory. Which is why Nell was running such an intense performance stat analysis and cross-referencing it with completed projects, recognition, and absences. There had to be something - big or small - that would indicate when one of the three men developed their murderous plans. 

Unfortunately, her tablet’s CPU wasn’t anywhere near powerful enough to extract that kind of information right away. The program would take half the night if she got lucky, and wouldn’t be done until after breakfast if she wasn’t. Slumping down to rest her forehead on the cold Formica table Nell wondered if there was anything else she could think of to do that would justify putting off sleep for a little bit longer? It wasn’t even midnight yet so she could easily keep working for another few hours if she needed to. The alternative was crawling into bed and snuggling under the covers. Which used to be one of her favorite retreats, like taking a long bath or going on a Netflix binge but since leaving Bakersfield all it seemed to do is make her feel even more alone. She’d gotten used to those quiet late-night conversations with Eric before they went to sleep. She’d felt safe in the dark, her head resting on his chest or his body curled protectively around hers. Sometimes they’d talked about their day or shared part of their pasts, but in the last few weeks, they’d started talking about the future too. Hoping and imagining all the amazing things there might be ahead for Bethany. Acknowledging how hard it would be when they had to step back and allow the formal adoption processes to happen. Nell couldn’t help smiling at the memory of Eric admitting that he’d always wanted to have kids - he’s going to be an amazing dad someday. Her heart had ached when he’d admitted it was getting harder each day to remember that, no matter how much he’d grown to love her, Bethany wasn’t theirs to keep. Nell regretted not telling him then just how much he and Bethany meant to her, how much she wished it would be possible for them to stay together once the threat was gone and they all went back to LA. 

A lump rose in her throat as she thought about the feel of his arms wrapped around her. She missed him with an ache that seemed to tug at the deepest part of her. She can’t imagine going back to her apartment alone. She can’t remember a specific moment when ‘home’ had stopped being a place but there was no denying it had become two people instead. And she didn’t even know if Eric... Nell smothered a sob with her hand, trying desperately to muffle the gasping, painful breaths that seem so loud in the quiet of their apartment not wanting Bethany to hear. She can’t - she won’t - consider a future without him being alive. Whatever else might come to pass, she couldn’t survive that. 

Minutes, maybe hours, pass as the tears stream down her cheeks and her chest burns from the effort of fighting back the panic attack that looms over her, sapping what little strength she has left. There’s no space left in her mind for the vengeance that’s been driving her, only fear and regret. She’d been so afraid of letting him in, letting him see just how much she cared about him and needed him by her side. Never finding quite the right moment, never knowing the right words. She could have told him at any one of a hundred moments, could have offered her confession to the dark while his arms were still wrapped around her, could have accepted everything he’d always silently offered her...and maybe that wouldn’t change the fact she’s here, now, alone but at least then he’d have known. Known that she loved him and would fight the devil himself before she gave him up. 


	16. Set Fire to the Rain

**Chapter 16: Set Fire to the Rain**

**.**

**. .:. .. .: The Mission, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

**.**

The transition from asleep to awake was sudden and absolute. 

There was no gentle easing into it. It wasn’t his haptic alarm set 10 minutes before the auditory one, or soft light peeking around curtains. It wasn’t Bethany’s small voice by his shoulder, or Nell burrowing deeper into his embrace if she woke her first, trying to cling onto sleep for just a few more minutes. 

When Eric woke, it was loud and bright and everything hurt like hell. 

“Eric!”

Eric groaned, trying to pry his eyelids open as his brain slowly clicked into gear. _Sam. Sam is calling his name not Callen. Callen sent home at 1 am which meant... after. It’s after 1 AM_. His brain provided the information sluggishly, drip-feeding it to him in small pieces as he drifted in and out. _Ops. This, he’s still in ops. They’d agreed to sleep until five. Couldn’t be five yet. Medic, that medic was coming at four - Glory? No, Gloria. Gloria hadn’t been yet._

“I need you with us, Eric!” Sam’s closer now, his hand resting on Eric’s shoulder. _Standing beside him like Bethany did sometimes...like..._

“Bethany! Nell!” Eric yells, forcing his eyes to stay open even as he recoils from the stinging light. He needs to move. He gasps at the pain that lances through his chest, black spots dancing in his vision as he goes to sit up - but he needs to get out of this damn bed so he tries again, only to be blocked by Sam’s hand.

“Wait. I’m sorry, just wait. No, don’t try to move yet. I’ll put the bed head up. Just - give it a minute and you’ll see,” Sam says, and as much as Eric wants to protest he can’t help sagging back into the mattress in relief. He can still feel his muscles protesting as the motor raises the head, but he can bear it. If he could figure out what happened to his glasses then he’d be able to see - able to help. It feels like forever before the bed is in the right position before he’s got his glasses on and his trusty tablet is set up on the tray table in front of him. But they get there. Eventually. 

“What’s the situation?” Eric demanded, opening up the source code on his tablet even as he’s cataloging all the information he can see on each of the massive screens around them.

“Alarms started going off a few minutes ago. Like, every alarm. Lights, sound - the whole works. Then the pictures started popping up - hundreds of them, with all this information attached. I figured that must mean someone’s stumbled into our trap so the team is en route but I need _you_ , Eric, to tell me what the hell we’re looking for. Because right now, it’s like I’m looking for someone else’s car in a mall parking lot on Christmas Eve. Hetty’s making some calls to the Powers That Be, said she’d be here by the time Callen arrives.”

As Sam spoke, the pictures were rapidly shifting between screens, some of them flashing green and shrinking in size while new ones popped up but the central screen was clearing to make way for three groups: inactive (grey), validated (green), and anomalies (red) under a larger heading which read ‘relevant’. If it weren’t so dire, Eric would have stopped to admire the elegance of Nell’s code. It was forcing the system to not just run highly complex cross-referencing, (matching keystrokes, photos, and login details recorded at the time of the hack against their samples on file) but that it was also rapidly transferring it into a format that the rest of their team would understand. Already, Callen, Kensi, Deeks, Cecilia, Hetty, Luke, and Nell’s accounts were listed as Inactive, Sam’s and Eric’s had been validated and, as they watched, Hetty moved columns into validated as she came online. 

“So, the good news is, whoever is doing the hacking hasn’t tried to spoof one of our accounts,” Eric said, glancing down at his screen to see the detailed diagnostics, “Tom, Mitch, and Luke’s accounts are all online but even with the prioritization - it’s still validating them. Wait - no. Wow.” Eric paused, momentarily stunned as suddenly the bottom category began to rapidly fill with red accounts. 

“What? Why are there suddenly twelve, no twenty? Is it saying they’re all actually Mitch or Tom?” 

Eric sighed. “It’s a brute force attack. If you look, they’re all coming from two IP addresses - the photos are dark but there are just enough points for two positive IDs. The account numbers will keep climbing, it’ll create a drag on the system as it tries to wade through all the duplicates as they keep trying to get in but we’ve got a lock on their GPS coordinates. Kensi and Deeks look like they’re still 5 minutes out so I’ll reroute them,” Eric paused, instinctively tapping his earpiece only to discover that it wasn’t there. 

“Fine. I guess _you’ll_ reroute them,” Eric said glaring when Sam laughed, his look icy enough to have Sam walking away as he dialed and returning fast with the earpiece Eric was missing. 

“Kensi? Do you and Deeks have all your gear? Good. Eric’s sending coordinates now. You’re on Mitch, Callen and I have Tom. They’re doing some sort of joint hack thing -” Sam paused listening then continued, “Yeah, it’s one of our facilities so Eric can credential you in but you’ll still have to go in silent and hot. Yeah. You too.”

“Callen’s just pulling up now,” Eric said as Sam hung up.

“Excellent work Mr. Hanna, Mr. Beale,” Hetty said gravely, appearing as she always did, without warning. “I met Mr. Callen in the parking lot and suggested he keep the motor running seeing there wouldn’t be time to waste changing drivers, Mr. Hanna. We have moles to hunt. And yes, Eric and I can handle things from here, off you go,” Hetty said when Sam opened his mouth to protest one or other of her instructions. Eric thought probably the fact Callen was driving but he _definitely_ wasn’t getting involved in that. 

“We’ll get them, Eric,” Sam said, giving one last nod to Hetty before leaving at a jog for the parking lot. Knowing the teams were both at least fifteen minutes drive from their targets, Eric turned back to the results. There was something - 

“Do I need to bring Gloria in early, Eric?” Hetty asked suddenly, breaking into Eric’s focus and making him realize he’d gotten so caught up in one of the lines of source code he’d been following that he’d forgotten Hetty was still there. “Normally you’d be chatting. Talking to yourself, to the team over coms, announcing their progress but I’m not hearing anything except keys clicking and you’re glaring at that screen like it has personally offended you.”

Eric glanced up, seeing that it had been close to five minutes since he last checked the team’s progress.

“Not Gloria. No, I’m fine - well relatively speaking. I was shot recently so, obviously, I can’t actually be fine but what I mean is I’m not medically any worse than I was yesterday. No, it’s this data - it’s wrong.”

“Wrong? How?”

“I’m not -” Eric frowned, typing in another string with more force than he’d usually use and then pointing irritatedly at his screen when the single word ‘complete’ appeared.

“Words, Mr. Beale. I don’t speak computer so you’ll have to explain it to me. What is wrong with the data?”

“It’s like - it’s like,” Eric glanced around looking for inspiration, frustrated that when he most needed to think clearly, he couldn’t. It was like the stress and fatigue of the past few days had become mental fog and he was constantly trying to see around it, having to wait until he got close enough before the ideas finally came into focus. “It’s like I’m watching a shell game. The program processed close to 1000 accounts in less than five minutes, but these 75 have gotten stuck somehow. I’ve manually checked ten and each one can be cleared but the program keeps adding them back onto the end of the queue and reprocessing them.”

“So it’s a glitch?” 

“No. That’s the problem. The program won’t let them go because the data it’s basing its calculations on, has changed. Not a lot but just enough to continue to deny it access. I rechecked one of the nine I’d just done and the second time that one was anomalous to a different part of that same account. The first time, the keystrokes didn’t quite match. The second time, it was a single point on facial recognition. Both technically fall into the anomaly category so it might be nothing but -”

“But you don’t think it is.” 

“Yeah,” Eric sighed, grateful that Hetty wasn’t dismissing it. 

“If it was you, hacking in and you intentionally chose to create that effect, why would you have done that?” 

“It would prevent the system from noticing if one of the other accounts shifted. Then I’d use that account to do a sublevel hack, run it directly under the search they were running so they couldn’t track it.” Eric stared at Hetty, more than a little alarmed. Somehow she’d reached in and pulled an explanation out of his brain. He hadn’t _intended_ to say any of that. Hadn’t even been aware he knew exactly what was wrong. 

“And could you find that sublevel hack if you looked now?” Hetty prompted.

“Right! Yeah, um, on it!” Eric tried to offer a smile, but he had a feeling it probably looked more like a grimace. He’d started typing before a momentary panic set it. “Oh!”

“Yes, Mr. Beale, I’ll take over tracking the team and warn you when they’re getting close. I’m sure I can manage that for a few minutes on my own.” 

Eric, however, wasn’t listening anymore. He’d heard Hetty say she’d take over and immediately refocused back in on the code he’d started writing, the one that tried to trace that oh so elusive trail - the one that was more about spotting artifacts, tiny chips of excess code that didn’t belong to the program Nell wrote yet were close enough that they didn’t stand out, they did just enough to slow down the validation process to allow something to slide unnoticed below it. It was a bold move for a hacker, they were slow and delicate to pull off because you always needed two or three other processes running at once to be able to hide it well enough and the proof of method was exhausting to document. Far too many hackers didn’t have the patience for it, they wanted cleaner, faster results, and bragging rights. It was one of the few methods he still spent time teaching their tech teams to defend against. It was one of the few tactics he’d ever found that could be used to beat Nell when they competed in the hacking equivalent of Capture the Flag. It had become a tradition of the T&IS Christmas party, him and Nell facing off against one another, trying to simultaneously defend their flag and steal the other’s flag. They would each pick a small team of experienced and new staff who got the inside loop on their strategy and could work alongside them each year while everyone else got to enjoy the show. Eric’s hands froze on the keys. 

“Mr. Beale, what have you remembered?”

“I demonstrated beating Nell with this method once. Two years ago as part of a competition. He was part of my team that year, I taught him how to predict what kind of junk code would match Nell’s source code.”

“Who, Eric.” 

“Luke Isaac,” Eric whispered, his fingers suddenly feeling like lead on the keyboard. “I taught him how to steal something and make it look like it was still there.” 

“How do we stop him?” Hetty’s tone was sharp and Eric flinched as though he’d been struck by it.

“I don’t -” Eric paused, at a loss. This was his fault. Luke was going to find what he’s looking for because Eric had handed him the keys.

“If you had to find Nell, right this second, what could you take from this system that would tell you where she is?”

“The only devices she has are mine. They’re the new generation that I designed for the department. I swapped the ones you gave us from the NCIS stores out at the last minute. There’s no record of their IMEI numbers on the NCIS system because the only record of their existence is in the patents stored in your safe. She will have ditched her phone - ditched everything electronic except the tablets, that was always the plan. If she kept the car its details would be logged somewhere at the FBI and she would have already hacked the GPS chip if she didn’t completely remove it. There’s nothing for us to track her with.”

“So the only thing she can do would be to press her emergency beacon. Which brings us to her but -”

“Of course! The beacon!”

“I don’t-”

“It’s brilliant really, why mess with a winning strategy when you can double down on it?”

“Focus, Mr. Beale. Can he _use_ this beacon to find Nell?”

“Not before I do,” Eric promised, tapping his earpiece. “Kensi? Callen? I need you to turn around now and head to the airport, Hanger 1. The brute force attack, Tom and Mitch, it’s all a distraction. I’ll explain once you get there but Hetty and I are going to need back up.” Eric ended the call without waiting for their replies and turned to Hetty. “I need you to charter us a plane to Sacramento and we need to go now. I can explain it all once we’re on the road -”

“On the road? Eric, you’re in no shape to be here let alone-”

“It’s Nell, Hetty. Nell _and_ Bethany. They’re my world, and right now they think they’re safe, but the first thing Nell would do if she was threatened is to activate the beacon! If we don’t get there first-” Eric swallowed roughly, forcing himself back on track. “Do you remember the GLONASS Zero Day? I can slow Luke down, keep him out for as long as I can and make it as hard as possible for him to know which beacon Nell has but unless I leave Ops I can’t trick the system into accepting decoy beacons, which means I can’t cloak Nell’s beacon without giving him her location by process of elimination. Now, more than ever, we don’t know who we can trust within the NCIS Tech team and even if I could send someone like Ira in my stead, I don’t have time to teach him our systems, not while also counter hacking Luke. Please, Hetty. We need to go now.”

“Bugger! It seems we’re out of options.” Hetty’s gaze shifted, focusing on something behind Eric. “Just in time, Gloria. I’m afraid we’ll need you to accompany us on an urgent field trip. If you could help get Mr. Beale ready. I’ll make that call Eric and then we’ll face the stairs together.”

The glare Gloria gave Hetty would have incinerated a lesser being. Instead of protesting the order, as Eric had half expected based on the look they exchanged, Gloria began packing up the temporary field hospital around him with ruthless efficiency. If Eric hadn’t had more code to write he would have continued to watch in fascination as even the IV pole was collapsed down into 5-inch segments and packed tidily away. Instead, Eric focused back on the code he was writing. He’d already added an extra firewall around the system which incorporated all of their rapid response systems and now, using the type of security measures he’d designed for the Bent Program, he worked from the inside out building a veritable maze around it, adding layer upon layer of deflections and barriers. Undeterred by the movement around him, he barely paused as Gloria detached the ECG leads from his chest, checked the cannula and his dressings, and removed the pulse oximeter - his right index finger instantly rejoining the others as he typed. 

“Your carriage awaits, Mr. Beale.” 

Eric looked up and despite everything, he laughed incredulously. Gloria stood beside him with his swivel chair. With two sharp taps, he’d locked his tablet screen and surrendered his devices to Hetty who carefully stowed them in one of his equipment bags. 

Swivel chairs were definitely not designed to be used in place of wheelchairs, Eric discovered. Clinging and gulping, he slid across the vinyl seat as he was wheeled out of Ops. Gloria and Hetty had somehow prevented him from taking a header while walking down the stairs, but all he could remember of the ordeal was how unspeakably painful it had been. As he melted into the soft leather of the backseat of Hetty’s car his vision still danced with black spots. He was so fatigued that he barely noticed Gloria fitting an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, making no protest as she removed the earpiece that connected him to the rest of their team. 

By the time he looked up again, his mind was clear enough to realize they must be getting close to the airport. Glancing at Hetty in the rearview mirror he felt bad that he hadn’t made any move to explain where exactly they were going. 

Hetty, as usual, responded to this thought as though he had spoken it aloud. “Rest, Mr. Beale. You can explain it once we’re on board. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Closing his eyes, Eric allowed himself to let go - to accept the darkness that still crowded in at the edges of his vision.

**... .:. ... .:. ...**

By the time the plane touched down in Sacramento close to three hours had elapsed since Eric had awoken to the loud and frantic reality that the trap Nell had set had been sprung. The team was grimly determined as they piled into three armored vehicles commandeered by Hetty. Eric, Hetty, and Gloria into a surveillance van, Sam and Callen, Deeks, and Kensi into two SUVs. Dispersing the team across the city to plant four of the GPS transponders, keeping the last two with them for the time being. 

The only way Eric had been able to keep Luke out as his defenses slowly fell, was to lock his secure tablet inside the response system’s code, shutting out all other ports. It was a risky play - not least because it meant that Eric was the only NCIS personnel who would be notified if any agent activated their distress beacon. But it was the only way the second part of his plan could work. He had to be able to manipulate the beacons, making them appear to move, deactivate or activate at will if he had any hope of convincing the system to allow him to add six decoy nodes in Sacramento. He knew with a single look at the four currently showing in the area, which one was Nell and Bethany. Hetty had been right, he could have narrowed it down to a single street-based purely on the forum post but that was still over 30 blocks to account for. Only one of the beacons was currently located along that street. 

“Sam, Deeks - report in,” Eric snapped out, his fingers still flying across the keys as he prepared the program which would make the beacons across the country spark up like the alternating lights on Christmas trees.

“In position, all planted and attached.” 

“In position and ready to roll.” 

“On my count: 3...2...1...Now!” Eric held his breath as emergency response requests started flashing across the map, blinking on and off in such quick succession that it was impossible to keep track of how many there were in each place. Letting out a sigh of relief when he noticed that each of the Sacramento decoys were now online and between one second and the next, a single solitary dot had disappeared off the system and didn’t turn back on. 

“Beacons are live and the target has been cloaked,” Eric said, his voice sounding loud in the anxious silence that had come after they’d each activated their decoys and waited for confirmation that the plan had worked.

“Bravo, Mr. Beale.”

“Thanks, Hetty,” Eric said, dredging up a small smile even though his heart hadn’t stopped racing yet. 

“Eric?” Callen’s voice lacked its usual steel, a question rather than a demand. 

“Callen and Sam, take Insight Coffee Rosters, corner of S St and 8th St.”

“On it.” 

“Kensi, Deeks - you’re on Selland's Market Café close to the corner of Broadway St and 10th St.”

“On our way.”

“When you get there, order something, connect to the wifi, I need you to look settled. This is going to take a while.”

Eric waited until he’d heard both affirmatives before ending the call with the team and turning to Hetty. “We need to be as close to the California State Capitol Museum as you can manage without being too conspicuous.” 

“I take it we’re not going there to sightsee anymore than the rest of the team is off to have breakfast?” Hetty asked as they pulled back into traffic. “I doubt Gloria is in any mood to approve wandering around looking at exhibits any time soon.”

“I need the team in place to create a mesh wifi network across that area and food vendors are the most reliable option for having free, easily exploited wifi networks and allowing their patrons to linger without suspicion,” Eric agreed, continuing to type as he spoke. “It’s not the museum itself, what we need is to be close enough to hack into their administrative division. They’re a government entity which means their network will have the right security type for me to be able to spoof an official transmission from it and make it _look_ like it’s coming from NCIS. Which, I know, is another fireable offense but it’s the only way we’re going to be able to lead Luke into a trap without endangering any of the real people carrying the beacons.”

“I’ve always believed in going out in a blaze of glory, Mr. Beale. But it also doesn’t hurt to make it as difficult as possible for them to find someone with the skills necessary to _prove,_ beyond reasonable doubt exactly how you did it.” 

This time it was easy to match Hetty’s smile, grateful that she hadn’t tried to offer false platitudes or pretend this wasn’t one more nail in the coffin of his career. Instead, she had some practical advice that might yet prevent him from being reduced to a Luddite for the rest of his life. Because the person who was most likely to be called as a witness to give evidence to verify his methods, was also the one person neither side of the court could call due to the small fact of not being required to make statements that might incriminate you. Which, if he made this as deviously illegal as he could, she couldn’t admit to knowing about it without potentially opening up a line of questioning about _how_ she knew it. Besides, there was no way NCIS would want to admit to sanctioning previous hacks like this one, carried out by their two most senior tech operators. The only other person who knew the way Eric coded intimately enough to recognize it, was Ira, but Eric had the equipment and the experience necessary to prevent leaving the kind of signature Ira would still be expecting his code to have.

Onscreen, Eric watched as the dot which had replaced Nell’s, now drove across town, heading for the Capitol Museum. 

**.**

**.**

**. .:. .. .: Undisclosed Location, Sacramento :. .. .:. .**

**.**

**.**

Nell jerked awake, peeling her cheek off the kitchen table where she’d apparently spent the night and wincing as she tried to move her neck enough to take in her surroundings. It was later than she expected. She had gotten used to being up at 5 am no matter how much sleep she’d had so it was a surprise to see it was just after seven. Eager as she was to know what had caused the beep that had woken her, Nell forced herself to follow the routine she’s set for herself every morning since this whole nightmare started. 

Nell moved as quietly as she could, cracking open the door to the bedroom she shares with Bethany. Her heart aches as she sees her little girl still wrapped up tight in her blankets and sleeping soundly, looking so peaceful despite the literal hell they’ve been through. Nell stays by the door soaking up this quiet moment, her memory supplying the heat of Eric standing behind her, the way they’d stood together on so many evenings when they’d gone to check on Bethany before going to bed. She’s grateful for the click of the coffee machine timer bringing her back to reality, back to the rest of her responsibilities that needed to be squeezed into however much time she had left before Bethany woke up. 

Coffee in hand, Nell did a quick lap around the apartment checking the windows and doors were all still sealed uptight, her burner-phone charged and sitting beside the beacon and her car keys, ready for a quick exit. Which just left one more thing before she could get back to that all-important beep. Checking the private mailbox. Just the thought of it turned the coffee sour in her stomach. 

Not that she didn’t want to hear from Eric, because there are very few things in this universe⏤in the multiverse⏤that she wants more, but can she face one more day of there _not_ being a message? Of not knowing? Seeing an empty inbox is far more effective torture than she thought possible and she’s had _plenty_ of time to think about the nature of torture since first entering the world of espionage and terrorism. It breaks something inside her every minute that goes by without knowing if he’s okay. But she can do this. She _has_ to do this. With shaking hands, Nell launches the browser and types in the address, watching as the webcam clicks on and uses facial recognition to authenticate her login, and finally ⏤ the mailbox loads. 

.

___________________

| |   
| 1 New Message |  
| [OPEN] |

|__________________|

.

Nell screws her eyes closed, not wanting to reopen them, just in case this is some ghastly trick of her mind. A dream, a nightmare, anything that might mean this isn’t real. Nell counts to three, then to five, to ten, and finally, on thirteen - she forces her eyes open. 

The message is still there. 

Nell laughs but it comes out closer to a sob as she scrambles to hit Open. 

**\----------Message Received:** **\----------**

“Glad you left & stayed safe. Injured but able to reclaim my swivel chair. Morse received, understood, and backstopped from inside. H requesting contact: 213-200-0089. Not safe to return home yet. ILU2. E.”

**\------------------------------**

The relief hits Nell like a tidal wave; leaving her gasping, tears streaming down her cheeks as that part of her she’d started to fear wouldn’t ever feel whole again, clicks back into place. He’s alive! Eric is alive and already back in Ops. Her breath catches, a silent sob wracking her body as she tries to hold herself together. She’d been so terrified that she’d already lost him, that she’d never get the chance to tell him-- the words stick in her throat as she reads the last few words of his message again. He knows. He knows that she loves him and he said it back. She expected that fact to scare her, the enormity of that feeling and the expectations that go with it to overwhelm everything else, but it doesn’t. It wraps around her like a blanket, all softness and security, and warmth. It feels like coming home. 

.:.

As much as Nell wanted to immediately call the number Hetty had provided, she forced herself to wait. She had no way of knowing what had happened after she’d set the pandora’s box, escaping with the stolen files and slamming the door shut behind her, but the beep that had woken her meant that her searches had found _something_. 

Opening the results Nell skims her way down no discrepancies in the pay system that might suggest tampering with the financial transactions, no individuals with a pattern of sick days, but patterns in planned and unplanned leave requests? Nell clicks on the result blinking in surprise as eighteen months’ worth of data pops up before her, highlighting a correlation between the leave taken by Mitch Prentice and Tom Bright. They weren’t always consecutive days and Nell doubts any of the current HR systems could have identified it but, seeing it spread out before her like this she started to think they needed to put some kind of system in place for it. Particularly because between May and June that number had doubled from a maximum of two to four overlapping leave days, once when Tom was on leave, then again when Mitch took leave the following month. It would make sense if they’ve been conspiring about how to divert Luke Isaac’s promotion to Tom that they’d need time to lay the groundwork behind that award. But did that translate to being willing to commit murder over what they’d found? Nell shook her head, putting the report to one side and continuing to scan the rest of the results. And there, hidden in the middle of the list was the result she had been half hoping, half dreading she’d find. Evidence that HR manager and HR assistant’s logins had been cloned or spoofed on at least two occasions, once the week before and once after the emails about the promotions had been sent out. Clicking into the details, Nell was increasingly sure that it had been Luke who’d hacked in. The HR manager’s account had viewed extensive pay sheets, leave requests, and promotion histories for both Tom and Mitch, which either of them could have checked from themselves using their employee login to the HR portal if they’d wanted to. If Luke had discovered the pattern Nell’s search had found _and_ the evidence that he had originally been recommended and granted the promotion? It certainly provided a motive to set them up to fall on their own sword by using the knowledge they’d publicly claimed as their discovery to commit a crime. The real question was, what was that line of code guarding that would make it worth murdering two people to get control of it? On a whim, Nell entered the most recent dates of the four days that both men had been away from the office into a search engine while doing the same in the HR files. What she found on the second page of results chilled her to the bone. It was a conference on supply systems and the topic for the final day? ‘When Requisition systems fail, preventing catastrophic losses.’ 

It made perfect sense. If the circular element was being used to rubber-stamp requisition orders then having control of it meant potentially having access to weapons, vehicles, cash reserves, equipment - everything that the navy needed. Not just to enable you to place orders and track them but also, more frighteningly, to decommission supplies. You could make it appear like entire shipments of arms were destroyed when in reality, they’d be stolen and sold on the dark web. If he’d been careful, Luke could have exploited the system’s weakness for years without discovery. He could have used the fact he wasn’t the manager of the department to set up Mitch and Tom to take the fall the skimming operation if anything ever went sideways. 

But if Luke had sold rights to access that key before he realized that he couldn’t get what he needed out of Bethany’s parents? That would explain why he hadn’t hesitated to try to kill Eric and kidnap Bethany. The kind of people involved in arms deals didn’t offer the option of changing the deal once it had been made, especially if they’d already made a downpayment. He and whichever devil he’d sold his soul to were desperate and if she played this wrong, they’d be captured long before the team could get to them. 


	17. Duck and Run

**Chapter 17: Duck and Run**

Eric had just finished the final line of code when Hetty pulled into a park one block north of the museum. There wasn’t anything elegant or subtle about the Trojan he’d just written. It was more like a sledgehammer than a scalpel but it would do the job all the same. Glancing at the GPS locator, Eric grinned when he realized Hetty had secured a spot directly outside a cafe with tables sprawling across the pavement. The kind of place that inevitably set up a signal booster to prevent customers complaining about their table being in a wifi blackspot. Which would make it that much easier for Eric to tap into it without so much as putting a single foot outside the ban. It wouldn’t hurt to add one more node to his mesh network. A couple of clicks and he was in, his virus already jumping from one phone to the next as they became aware of the wifi network he’d co-opted.

“Okay, Eric, we’re connected to the wifi, what’s next?” Callen’s tone was casual, as though he was asking about the weather but Eric could hear the impatience - the drive to be doing something.

“Us too,” Kensi added. “I hope you weren’t wanting us to be super inconspicuous because Deeks just ordered half the breakfast menu.”

“Like you can talk,” Deeks snorted, “you spent five minutes holding up the line while you deliberated which type of scone you wanted with your coffee.”

Eric double-checked each of the team’s devices had a stable connection to their host network before typing in ‘Run’ and hitting enter.

“You should see a pop-up,” Eric said, “Hit accept and keep accepting. There should be a notification for every wifi-enabled device in the vicinity.”

“Won’t people notice?” Sam asked, “I mean, I get that most people automatically connect when they’re offered free wifi but aren’t they going to be suspicious if they get a message like that. ”

“Ah, but that’s the beauty of this network. They won’t realize they've been connected to it because it will still look like they’re connected to the 4G cell network when actually, I’ve just turned their phone into a wifi hotspot. Very few people actively block their phone from detecting wifi networks and that ping will be enough for me to latch onto their device. Each one will then scan for any other device not already connected to the network.” 

“So what?” Sam demanded, clearly itching to be doing something. “We just sit here, like some kind of digital ushers, waving people inside?”

“Every device we add to the network increases the potential speed and reach which makes it harder for Luke to isolate an individual device to get an exact GPS lock on it. The people who stay connected inside the wifi zone will boost the speed but the people who leave the cafe will help create a smokescreen by convincing every device around them to send pings back to the main network. Depending on the turnover at those cafes with takeaways, the number of requests to join should jump dramatically as people move away from the store. I'm talking potentially hundreds all at once if even a few enter a crowded space after the cafe. I need you to keep hitting accept as fast as you can so that the connection doesn’t bottleneck. It means that if he realizes I’ve tricked him into exposing his location and tries to counter-hack me he’ll be met with a mess of nodes, all leading nowhere.”

“So it’ll be like we’re playing candy crush on speed? See Kensi, I told you that would come in handy one day. HA. I’m pretty sure I’m over 30 already. Are we keeping count? Because if this is a competition then you’re all going down.”

“No one’s keeping count,” Callen snapped back as he tapped repeatedly at the screen, already the pop-up seemed to be a permanent feature on his screen. 

“I also need you to figure out a spot where you could stash one of your phones, somewhere out of sight that still gets signal. There's still a chance I might need you to move out fast.”

“Bring it on! Do your thing Beale, we’ve got this.”

“Thanks, guys.” Eric cut the call with a tap to his earpiece and turned to Hetty and Gloria. 

“What aren’t you telling them, Eric?” Hetty asked, her gaze assessing. “And what happens if he doesn’t respond to whatever it is you’re planning to send him.”

“What I _just_ sent him, you mean,” Eric clarified and winced when he noticed Hetty wasn’t pleased with that particular piece of news. “I know where Nell is, the place she’s using is between 9th and 10th streets, a couple of blocks from each of the cafes.”

“You want the team in position, ready to move in to assist her because you’re expecting her to contact me,” Hetty said shrewdly.

“If she’s still following the emergency plan we made then she’ll check that mailbox this morning as soon as she’s got Bethany settled. Once she calls, I can patch her into the mesh network, giving her the perfect firewall to protect her location while she helps me track down Luke Isaac. At that point, the team can split - Callen and Deeks going into guard Nell and Bethany, Kenzie and Sam staying in their cars ready to move out as soon as we get a lock on Luke’s location - or to come to us if we need backup.”

“And we’re expecting to need back up because?”

“If Luke breaks through the last barrier I put up around the beacon system before I find him, he’s going to lock onto that beacon that replaced the one Nell had. The one I held onto while the team planted the rest of the decoys,” Eric said pointing to the emergency device sticking out of the bag beside him, its light still faintly glowing.

“I trust you were planning to tell us that you’d painted a target on our backs _before_ you suspected he had a lock on our location, Mr. Beale. This may be an armored vehicle but-”

Whatever Hetty had been going to say was cut off by a ringtone, loud in the confined space of the armored van. 

“Impeccable timing as always, Miss Jones,” Hetty answered the call on speaker, moving to hold it closer to Eric as she spoke.

“Hetty? I know who the mole is and what the circular element is protecting at the Bellington Supply Base. It’s Luke Isaac.” Nell was so relieved to finally have a secure line that her words almost tumbled over each other in her rush to get them out. “I think he originally planned to frame Tom and Mitch for a skimming operation that could have lasted years if he’d been patient but things went sideways when he couldn’t get the information he needed out of the Hayes. I think by that point he was already in too deep with people who wouldn’t take no for an answer. I don’t have the equipment or the firewalls to be able to validate it but I’m almost certain he sold the information on the dark web.”

“Requisitions! Of course! Nell, you’re a genius!” Eric said, his fingers tapping out line upon line of code even as tears of joy and relief rolled down his cheeks at the sound of her voice after so long. 

“Eric? Oh god. Eric-” Nell’s breath caught, her voice shaking with emotion. “I’m so sorry -”

“It’s okay, Nell. I’m okay, I promise.” Eric swallowed hard, “You - you got me to the hospital and you had to go. It was the only way to keep you and Bethany safe.”

“She misses you so much, Eric. We both do. I just wish -”

“I know, but you got me back to the team and I’m okay. Now it’s your turn. We’re here to bring you home, Nell.”

“Here? How? Eric -”

“Mr. Beale insisted we charter a flight to Sacramento very early this morning,” Hetty cut in smoothly, aware that neither of them would be as succinct or coherent as the mission demanded. “The trap you set was a success. Unfortunately, it seems Mr. Isaac had anticipated something like it and immediately launched an attack on the emergency beacon system when he tripped the alarm, with the intent to hunt you down. If you’re up to it, Miss Jones, I believe Mr. Beale has a plan that would enable you to help us catch him and whatever hired goons he has working for him. But first, perhaps you can enlighten us as to your apartment number so that we can send Mr. Callen and Miss. Blye to you. I believe Eric knows the rest of your address.”

“Third floor, apartment seven,” Nell blurted out, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that the team was actually here in Sacramento.

“I’ll inform the team. Perhaps, Mr. Beale, you might like to catch Nell up with -”

“Wait, Hetty. I need a few more minutes to get the patch uploaded to the network that will allow their phones to auto-accept network requests so long as they stay connected to the host router. If they leave before that we’ll lose the whole mesh network. Callen and Kensie will both need to leave their phones at the cafes to keep it going.”

“You’ve created a mesh network?” Nell asked at the same time as Hetty said.

“Time is of the essence, Mr. Beale. I’m not letting that bastard slip through my fingers yet again.”

“Right. Um, just give me a sec.” There was silence as all of them listened to the rapid clicks of Eric’s keys. “Okay. Uploading now. Waiting for it to load and…”

Eric’s phone rang. Nodding at Hetty that the patch had worked, Eric put the call on speaker.

“The popups are gone. They just disappeared -” 

“What the hell happened, Eric -”

“How do we get them back?”

“Good news, gentlemen,” Hetty replied as Deeks, Sam and Callen seemed set to continue to speak over each other. “It appears your ushering duties are over. I hope you’ve found a good spot to hide yours, Mr. Callen and Mr. Deeks, they need to remain where they are.”

“We’re heading out?” Callen asked. 

“You are. As soon as you hide your phone and Eric confirms that the network is still active, I’ll tell you where you’re going.”

“Is mine still active, Eric?” Deeks asked trying not to look at where he’d hidden his phone under a pile of magazines that might actually be older than he was given how sun-bleached their covers were.

“Connection’s steady, good work Deeks.” 

“And mine?” Callen demanded. He hadn’t had a lot of options but had decided that tucked into the drip tray at the back of the fake potted plant was the least obvious option he had.

“I’ve got it, Callen, you’re good to go.”

“Mr. Hanna, Miss Blye you’ll drive Mr. Deeks and Mr. Callen to the location I’m about to give you but you’ll remain with your vehicles. We’re expecting trouble so I suggest you stay alert and ready to come to our aid at a moment’s notice.”

“And us, Hetty?” Callen asked, “Where are Deeks and I going?”

“You’re coming to me,” Nell said loudly enough for it to carry from one phone to the next. 

“Nell?”

“Whoa.”

“Welcome back!”

“There’ll be _plenty_ of time to catch up after we catch this bastard. Eric’s sending the address to you now, I suggest you move out now and let Eric and Nell get back to finding him.”

“I wish you were coming with them,” Nell said softly when the others had left the call.

“I know. Me too. But I’ll see you soon, okay?” Eric answered, swallowing hard. 

“Bethany’s not awake yet but-”

“Now, unfortunately, is not the time,” Hetty reminded them.

“Right, sorry.” Nell cleared her throat, trying to swallow around the lump that had formed there. “How do I connect to this network, Eric?”

“As soon as Callen and Deeks arrive, strip the protections off your ability to search for networks but keep your VPN active. You’ll get a force pair request, accept it and you’ll have full access to the network. Once you’re in we’ll be able to see each other’s dos scripts and I can show you the breadcrumb trail I’m tracking Luke by, so far it looks like he’s taken the bait and we’ll finally be able to hunt him the way he’s been hunting us.”

“And the team?”

“I need to know you’ve got back up just in case this turns into another firefight. I can’t bear to lose you or Bethany, Nell.”

“You won’t, Eric. You won’t lose either of us, ever again. Eric I-”

The sudden buzz of the intercom startled Nell who instinctively reached for her weapon.

“GPS puts Callen and Deeks outside the apartment block,” Eric confirmed as Nell crossed to the intercom phone and answered it with a brisk, “Hello?”

“You called for repairs to your security system?” Callen’s familiar laid-back tone almost made Nell’s knees give out with relief as she pushed the door release. 

Nell still had her head leaning against the wall when Bethany spoke from behind her.

“Mom? Is everything okay, do we need to leave?”

Nell grinned, “Everything’s fine and this time the cavalry is coming to us.”

“What’s a cavalry?” Bethany asked with a frown

Nell’s lips quirked as she tried to stifle her laughter, it was so easy to forget she was still only six-years-old and didn’t yet have the vocabulary to match her formidable intellect. 

“It means that help is on the way. You remember Callen and Deeks don’t you?”

“But not Daddy?” Bethany asked, her lower lip trembling violently. “Is he - is he?”

“It’s okay, Munchkin. I’m right here, on the other end of the phone.” 

“Daddy?” Bethany who’d initially looked around a little wildly to try to find the source of the voice narrowed in on Nell’s phone like a heat-seeking missile. Grabbing it and clutching it with both hands like a lifeline. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, Bethany. I’ll see you soon, okay? We’ve just got to catch the bad guy first.”

Nell was so caught up watching Bethany talking to Eric that she flinched with her whole body when someone knocked on their door. 

The first few minutes after Deeks and Callen arrived were a mess of hugs and tears. Then Nell asked the question that had been plaguing her ever since she’d heard Eric’s voice on the other end of the line. 

“Is Eric really okay?” Nell asked quietly, throwing a cautious glance over at where Bethany was still chatting to Eric. 

“He will be.” Callen answered at the same time as Deeks said, “Hetty’s got a medic, Gloria, that checks on him every hour in person and monitors him remotely the rest of the time.”

“How is he even out of the hospital? I saw him get shot multiple times.”

“This mission changed him. He’s stronger than he used to be and he wasn’t about to let a couple of bullet holes or major surgery stop him from providing you with backup. As soon as he knew you were still hunting for the mole he insisted that Sam and I break him out of the hospital. Hetty wasn’t pleased but even she could see that trying to force him to rest wasn’t going to work. Gloria did her training in Afghanistan so she barely batted an eyelid when Hetty instructed her to set up a field hospital in Ops to monitor and treat Eric while he worked. As crazy as it sounds, he’s actually holding up pretty well.”

“Having seen him face down those gunmen,” Nell said, swiping at the tears that were burning trails down her cheeks, “I’m pretty sure he’s the bravest person I’ve ever met. Thank you for looking after him while I couldn’t.”

“Come on,” Deeks said squeezing Nell’s shoulder, “Sooner we catch this asshole, the sooner we get you home and Eric back to the hospital.”

.

.:. . .:. . .:.

.

“I’ve got a lock on Luke. Sam, Kensi, I’m sending you the address now and a suggested route that should allow you to box him in,” Eric said, his fingers flying across the keys. “Nell, how are we going with the white supremacy group he sold us out to?”

“For a terrorist organization, their security is a joke. They’ve got a database behind their website which lists phone numbers for almost all of their members, I’m cross-referencing it with numbers active in the Sacramento area now.”

“Hetty?”

“Homeland Security and the local FBI field offices are ready and awaiting your instructions, Mr. Beale. They’ll launch simultaneous raids on the branches Nell identified across the country as soon as we give them the go-ahead.”

“Deeks, Callen?”

“All clear here, Eric. No sign of anyone around the building or any suspicious vehicles on the surrounding traffic cams.”

“I’ve got three moving south on the Westside Freeway, they’re approaching the I-5 bridge,” Nell said suddenly. “Hetty, I think they’re heading for you and Eric. I’m comparing the GPS data with Kaleidoscope to get a description of the vehicle.”

“Bugger! Mr. Beale, can I give Homeland the order to move in while Gloria and I prepare to defend this position until backup arrives?”

“Tell Homeland to move in on all locations except Sacramento,” Eric confirmed and listened as Hetty relayed the message to each of the teams, getting an ‘affirmative’ in reply.

“Eric, Hetty - do you need us as backup?” Callen asked, remembering belatedly that both their cars were gone.

“Stay where you are, Mr. Callen,” Hetty replied. “Gloria and I have got this, you just make sure Nell and Bethany stay safe.”

To Eric’s amazement, Gloria pulled a Barrett M82 rifle and an M9 out of one of the duffle bags he’d assumed contained medical supplies. Handing the first to Hetty, Gloria set the M9 aside and reached back into the bag, pulling out three vests and a helmet. None of them spoke as Gloria strapped Eric into his vest and Hetty, having donned both the vest and helmet, activated what looked like a high-tech sunroof with a hydraulic platform beneath it. Gloria took up the handgun and positioned herself by the rear door. 

“Sierra-1, this is Ringmaster,” Eric reported to the unit Hetty had arranged to provide backup. “We’ve got three targets closing in on our position in a single-vehicle traveling south on the Westside Freeway. Requesting immediate confirmation that your team is in position.”

“Copy that Ringmaster, we’ve got a perimeter around you and two vehicles ready to intercept as soon as we have a license plate and description.”

“I’ve got them!” Nell said suddenly before switching to the channel that allowed her to speak directly to the backup team. “Sierra-1, this is Valkyrie. Vehicle is a white Nissan van. License plate Six, Whiskey, Juliet, Alpha, Four, Niner, Four.” 

“Copy that Valkyrie, Road-runners one and two moving to intercept. Ground team prepare for incoming in case they slip the net.”

“Luke Isaac is in custody and his base is secured,” Sam said, his voice loud in the expectant silence.

“Good work Mr. Hanna, Mr. Deeks. Hold your positions, I’m sending additional agents your way to relieve you of him and admit his equipment into evidence. Once that occurs, head back to Nell and the rest of the team.”

They waited in tense silence, following the action via traffic cams as two armored vehicles closed in on the white van, forcing it to take the exit before boxing it in. There was a brief exchange of gunfire and the agents moved in, pulling one man out of the back of the van and cuffing him but leaving the ones slumped in the front seats.

“This is Sierra-1, stand-down ground team, threat has been neutralized. I repeat, all clear.”

“Copy that Sierra-1, we’ll leave this in your capable hands now. Over and out.”

.

.:. . .:. . .:.

.

Eric’s hands were shaking as he reached up to remove his headset. The drive across town to the apartment where Nell and Bethany were staying had gone by so fast and now, they were right there on the other side of the van door, waiting for him. Part of him kept expecting to wake up back in Ops, still waiting for the Pandora’s Box to spring and for all of this to have been naught but a dream. 

“Come along Mr. Beale, delaying it won’t make standing up any easier, I assure you,” Hetty scolded with a smile.

It took the combined efforts of Gloria, Hetty, and Eric but finally, he was upright and moving (mostly) under his own steam. Across to the door, down to the pavement, and there - right in front of him - the two most important people in his universe. 

Nell thought that if she hadn’t had Bethany’s hand to hold onto she would have thrown herself at Eric the moment he appeared in the doorway of the van. The joy and relief at seeing him standing before her was indescribable. She didn’t even try to brush away the tears streaming down her cheeks. Bethany detached herself from Nell and rushed forwards wrapped her arms around Eric’s waist. 

Seeing Eric stumble at the impact Nell had halted mid-reach. She’d unconsciously followed Bethany but her brain had kicked in at the last moment, stopping her from pulling Eric roughly into a hug and clinging to him as though she’d never let go. Bullet wounds didn’t heal in a matter of days. As much as a hug would revive and strengthen _her_ she did not wish to cripple him in her haste. Eric, however, had no such reservations, moving swiftly to bridge the gap she’d left between them and wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he pulled her more tightly to him. Nell’s other arm moved to wrap around Bethany’s back, holding them all together. 

Knowing the adrenaline that was currently keeping him on his feet would wear off all too soon Nell was careful not to lean her whole weight against him as she returned his embrace. A dam inside Nell broke, words tumbling over themselves in her haste to tell him just how glad he was alive and back where he belonged, with her and Bethany. The only truly coherent element, out of all of her ramblings, was the phrase ‘I love you, Eric’ which she repeated over and over, having been afraid for so long that she’d never had the opportunity to say it. If she hadn’t been so focused on saying it herself she might have noticed, might have understood that Eric was not, in fact making a reassuring rumble, but instead saying that he loved her too. 

A discrete cough finally penetrated Nell’s flood of words, pulling her out of the storm of emotions and sensations. Pulling her back to the cold grey of the parking lot, to the team waiting patiently off to one side, to Hetty’s kind but resolute expression. With an effort, Nell gently relaxed her grip on Eric’s shirt and she felt his arms similarly relax his hold, no doubt responding to the same unavoidable signal that whatever else needed to be said between them, it would have to wait.

“As relieved as we are to have you and Bethany back safely Miss Jones, I believe it’s time for Mr. Beale to go back to the hospital.” Hetty said, gesturing to a second vehicle Nell hadn’t even noticed pull-up with ‘Patient Transport’ emblazoned in green on the side where Gloria was waiting with a stretcher. “I’ve been advised that a second flight, so soon after a collapsed lung, is not wise. So I suggest, Miss Jones, that you and Bethany accompany the rest of the team back to the airport and take advantage of the opportunity to rest until Eric is settled back in his hospital room in Los Angeles.”

Nell could feel her throat closing, her fingers tightening on Eric’s shirt at the idea of leaving him again so soon. She knew Hetty was right but she couldn’t convince herself to let go.

“It’s okay, Nell,” Eric said softly, cupping Nell’s face in his hands. “Take Bethany and go with the team. I have a feeling I’m going to be sleeping most of the trip back anyway.” 

Nell’s smile was watery as she nodded, “I love you, Eric. Promise me you’ll make it back to me, back to us, in one piece.”

Eric ducked his head, pressing his lips against Nell’s in a possessive kiss. Trying to convey everything he felt in the all too brief moment before the pain closed back in and he was forced to pull back. Resting his forehead against Nell’s as he fought to regain his breath and his balance as black spots danced across his vision. 

“I love you, Nell. And I promise I’ll always come back to you and Bethany,” Eric vowed, pulling Bethany in close to his other side, soaking up this last moment together before the long trip back to LA. 

Nell, feeling Eric sway on his feet, carefully shifted her position. Moving to support his weight and signaling Gloria over with the stretcher. It was hard watching him again being loaded into an ambulance but Nell forced herself to stay in the present, not to think about the blood and tears that were so fresh in their memories. She and Bethany stayed clinging to one another until the van was out of sight before turning back to the team. Already counting down the hours until she could be back by his side. 


	18. I Get To Love You

**Chapter 18: I Get to Love You**

**.**

**. .:. .. .: Private Hospital Wing, Los Angeles :. .. .:. .**

**.**

Eric doesn’t remember anything from the trip back from Sacramento. He’s uncertain whether that’s because they sedated him or his body simply crashed due to exhaustion, but it’s dark when he finally opens his eyes again and realizes this must be the hospital. Disappointed that he’ll have to wait for morning to see Nell, Eric reaches out with his hands, trying to feel the call bell for a nurse. Eric recoils slightly when instead of cool sheets, his left-hand touches something warm and soft.

“Eric?” The words are muffled but the voice is unmistakable.

“Nell?” Eric whispers, wishing there was more light so he could see her properly. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home, resting?”

Nell lifts her head from its spot beside him and stretches, making it possible for him to see a dim outline of her in the light escaping around the edges of the door.

“I didn’t want to leave until I knew you were okay. They realized on the way back that you’d busted a few of your stitches and there were a whole bunch of scans ordered to check you hadn’t aggravated anything by discharging yourself against advice. Hetty managed to convince them to let me stay - at least until you woke up.” 

“I’m glad you’re here, even though you must need the sleep as much as I do.” Eric touched Nell’s hand and was relieved when she twined their fingers together. “What about Bethany?”

“She’s staying with Sam and his kids for the night and then Hetty’s bringing her back in the morning. She also said-” Nell paused, gathering her courage. She’s had close to 12 hours to think about it since Hetty mentioned it after Bethany left to have dinner with Sam. It still frightens her but it’s also, everything she’s ever wanted. 

“She told you about the investigation that’s been opened,” Eric said quietly, his grip tightening on her hand, “and the fact that there’s no chance that I’ll ever be able to work for any government organization ever again. We agreed that it would be easier for the team if I accept that decision and resign from NCIS rather than try to fight it.”

“Wha-what?” Nell asked, shaking her head as she tried to switch gears. “You’re not going to fight it? But that’s completely unfair, you did what you had to do to complete the mission - same as any of us have done hundreds of times.”

“No, I - I didn’t - I wouldn’t tell Hetty or anyone at NCIS where you were. Which is just one of a litany of charges, Nell.” Eric sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly tired. “I hacked the NCIS mainframes. I did nothing to prevent an external hack on the NCIS servers and actively assisted members of our team to infiltrate the HR system. I almost destroyed the emergency beacon system by locking out every single user except myself, potentially jeopardizing the safety of all of those agents if something had happened to me before I could reverse it. To top it off, I illegally hacked hundreds of civilian cell phones to create that mesh network. I would do it all again in a heartbeat but we both know they will find me guilty on some, if not all, of those charges.”

“I know we talked about this but you love working for NCIS, Eric,” Nell protested, raging at the seeming injustice of Eric being punished for saving Bethany’s life and hers. “What about the team?”

“When it comes to loyalty, they’re right. I chose you and Bethany over NCIS and hundreds of civilians. I’m a security risk because that won’t magically change now that I’ve got you back. It’s just like we talked about, Hetty can find someone to replace me on the team. I knew exactly what I was doing when I broke every rule in the book and you need to let me take the fall for this.”

Nell couldn’t breathe. Somehow, despite all their late-night discussion of what might happen if this mission went sideways, she’d never really accepted that their worst-case-scenario might actually stick. That Eric might lose everything, his security clearance, his job, his future - because of her. That she’d be able to go back to NCIS but he wouldn’t be there by her side.

“It’s okay, Nell, ” Eric whispered, tugging on Nell’s arm until she finally capitulated and climbed up onto the bed to lie beside him. Brushing away the tears that ran down her cheeks and talking softly as she fought off her panic attack. “I promise, everything’s going to be okay.”

Eric waited until her breathing finally settled and she relaxed beside him. “No matter what happens next, loving you is the best thing I’ll ever do, Nell.” Eric pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

“And Bethany?” Nell bit her tongue, forcing herself to ask the question she’d been trying originally. Before he’d dropped the bombshell about him resigning, and before he’d made that declaration of love that somehow felt so much bigger than any they’d shared until now. “Hetty said you’d asked for her help filing adoption paperwork?” 

Eric put a finger under Nell’s chin and tilted her head up so he could look into her eyes. “I’m not trying to force your hand. I know how hard this mission was for you, suddenly thrown in the deep end as a mother and a wife, and I know how much your career means to you. I don’t know what our future holds, but I know however much or little of yourself you’re prepared to share with me will be enough. Being your best friend would be enough.”

“Eric…”

“And I’m not asking you to decide now, while we’re both sleep-deprived and more than a little worse for wear. But you asked about Bethany. I’ve always wanted kids, I knew that going in but even I didn’t expect to love her as much as I do now. When I woke up in that hospital, I knew I’d do anything and everything I had to to get you back. To keep you safe, forever.” Eric paused, drawing in a sharp breath as Nell shifted beside him but glad that it didn’t seem like he was freaking her out. At least not yet. “What I realized was, the only thing that had stopped me considering applying to be her permanent guardian was my job and if I didn’t have that obligation to be on call at all hours, there wasn’t any reason why I couldn’t be a full-time dad. I can afford it and I don’t think I can bear the idea of her being bounced between distant relatives or put into the system. Not if I can offer an alternative. Not if it means she stays in the area so that you can still be part of her life in any way you choose.”

“You’re going to be an incredible dad,” Nell said, not even trying to stop the tears that were running down her cheeks. It was just - so much. She didn’t even know where to start but there was one thing she was certain of, “I love you, Eric.”

“I know.”

Nell laughed, loving the confidence that rang through those two simple words. At any other time, she would have called him on quoting Star Wars in a serious moment but somehow it felt right. Suddenly exhausted, Nell tried to fight off a yawn.

“C’mon, let’s get some sleep before the nurses discover I’m awake. We can talk about it more later,” Eric said, tucking her in closer to his side.

**.**

**.:. . .:. . .:.**

.

The following days and nights had blurred together. It was a jumble of seemingly endless tests and measurements mixed in with a constant stream of visitors. All of the team made regular appearances, and Bethany had been a constant presence the first few days. She’d eventually been convinced to return to school when it became clear the doctors were thinking weeks not days. Eric had been surprised to get cards and emails from what felt like half the remaining T&IS team, many of them thanking him for mentoring them over the years or saying how much they already missed him. He knew they were all still reeling from the shake-up that had come with Luke Isaac’s arrest, the investigation that had been launched into Tom and Mitch’s conduct, and his own resignation. Hetty had managed to hold off the investigators until he was reclassified as medically stable’ but now that had occurred, they were a constant menace. What really kept him sane was the fact Nell had taken up residence at his bedside, not leaving at all in that first 48-hours, and even when Hetty had insisted she at least go home and change, she’d come back almost immediately. Even when she’d finally been convinced to go back into Ops for part of the day she still turned up as soon as work ended, bringing dinner and they’d talk late into the night until one or other of them fell asleep. He wasn’t sure when the second bed had appeared, or how they’d managed to arrange it with the hospital, but he was glad Nell was staying by his side. Just as they’d shared confidences in the dark during their time undercover, it had given them time to talk about everything and nothing. About how they felt about each other, what they were afraid of, and even what they hoped for in the future. 

Another miracle had been the arrival of his parents. He still wasn’t completely sure what Hetty had told them but they seemed remarkably calm about the fact he was stuck in a hospital bed following major surgery. He was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact they’d dropped everything and flown to LA to live in his apartment and care for a little girl they’d never met, bringing her into the hospital each day before and after school without question. His mom even went so far as to stay at the back of her classroom that whole first, second, and half of the third day until Bethany finally trusted that they wouldn’t abandon her as soon as they were out of her sight. It was obvious that they were definitely curious about his relationship with Nell, but thankfully, they weren’t prying. He did not doubt that they had questions, especially once they realized she was the same Nell he’d been raving about for years, but they seemed completely focused on his recovery and caring for Bethany. Which made Eric wonder what exactly Bethany might have told them for them to seem so completely okay with it all. But he’d cross that bridge when he had to and not before. 

It was late on the Friday marking two weeks since he’d been readmitted to hospital that Eric finally got up the courage to ask the question that had been plaguing him. He took her left hand in his, tapping gently on the sapphire and diamond ring wrapped around the base of the fourth finger. The one he’d been wearing had been removed before his emergency surgery and, Eric assumed, Hetty had it. 

“You’re still wearing it?” Eric asked quietly, his eyes searching Nell’s. 

Nell could see the doubt and insecurities in his eyes despite how many times they’d each said ‘I love you’ since arriving back in Los Angeles and the fact she hadn’t missed a single night by his side. He’d been trying so hard not to make her feel trapped or tricked into giving him the answer they both knew part of him longed for. But she was ready to tell him, ready to sweep away all of the caveats about waiting for him to get better and for life to return to normal. As if either of them actually knew what that meant. She’d wanted to tell him ever since that first night but hadn’t quite dared to bring it up. 

“I’ve never taken it off,” Nell said quietly. “It was like having a piece of you with me when I had to leave you behind in Bakersfield and take Bethany on the run. It gave me the strength to keep going whenever I wanted to stop and rest. It was just enough to keep the crippling thoughts at bay.” 

“Because, I thought -” Nell swallowed, trying to hold back the fear that tried to choke her as she sat on the side of Eric’s hospital bed, one hand cradling his jaw. “I thought we’d lost you. I thought _I’d_ lost you. And I couldn’t bear it, Eric.” 

Eric moved as though to say something but Nell stopped him with a brush of her thumb to his lips. Part of her was terrified. But looking into Eric’s eyes she knew, this time it wasn’t her feelings she was afraid of. “Maybe I’ve always known. Maybe it wasn’t ever just admiration and a type-A personality. But now? Now I’m sure.”

With one final swipe of her thumb across Eric’s lips, Nell let her hand fall from his cheek. Clasping his left hand in hers, she slid off the bed, going down onto one knee. She couldn’t help smiling at the awe on Eric’s face as she pulled out the ring she’d been saving ever since her Grandfather had left it to her in his will almost five years ago. She’d gotten it out of the safe when she’d been sent home by Hetty to change after spending the first 48-hours at Eric’s bedside and she’d been carrying it around ever since. 

“I love you, Eric Beale. You’re my best friend, my partner, and the most incredible, selfless person I know. The month we spent as a family was some of the happiest days of my entire life. You taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid that being loved would mean having someone who constantly demanded more than I could give them. You taught me that I could be a mother and a wife without changing who I was, that I wasn’t sacrificing some part of myself but growing - my world expanding to include two people who loved me as much as I loved them. I want to share the rest of my life with you and Bethany. Will you marry me, Eric?”

“Yes!” Eric whispered, pulling on her hands, unable to stop smiling even as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. “ _I love_ _you_ , Nell Jones. Of course, I want to marry you.” 

Nell paused just long enough to slide the ring onto Eric’s left hand before allowing herself to be pulled into his arms. Settling herself carefully on the bed beside him, making sure not to lean against his still healing wounds even as she pressed her lips to his. 

The kiss they shared was intimate in a way none of the previous ones had been. There were no more undercover identities to grapple with, no colleagues or children watching, no one suffering a life-threatening injury in need of urgent medical care. It was just the two of them, finally admitting just how much they loved one another and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. 

Nell felt intoxicated by it, her heart almost bursting out of her chest with the knowledge that Eric loved her and was going to marry her. The freedom to thread her fingers through Eric’s hair, delighting in the way he melted just a little bit as her thumb brushed the sensitive spot behind his ear. Losing her breath when Eric bit gently on her lower lip, tugging it into his mouth. Pushing him back gently to lie back against the bed when it became too much for his healing torso to have her pressed up against him. The way he surrendered, handing her full control as she hovered above him, pressing kisses along his neck, his only movement that of his fingers brushing back and forth where he held her hips. But it wasn’t long before she was drawn back to his lips, drowning in the play of his lips and tongue against hers. 

Eventually, it was the clank of an IV pole being wheeled down the corridor outside his room that returned them to reality, and the knowledge that their sense of privacy was an illusion at best. Nell couldn’t resist pressing a final kiss to his lips before sliding off the bed and returning to the chair she’d claimed as her own. She couldn’t help laughing when he pouted at her sudden loss, the kiss she pressed to his hand above the ring he now wore producing a delightfully dopy expression. 

“I still can’t believe I get to have this,” Eric said quietly, “That I get to love you and be loved by you.”

“I’m always going to be someone you can believe in, Eric,” Nell said, brushing her lips across his. “There’s nothing we can’t do together, you, me, and Bethany and I’m going to love you with every last atom that I have, now and forever.” 

.

AN: Thank you again to everyone who’s come back to read the final chapters of this fic <3 I’d love to know what you think. To every writer out there who has an unfinished WIP that haunts them – it’s possible to finish it and trust me, it feels kind of amazing.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'd love to know what you think. You can also find me on Tumblr as [Intangibel](https://intangibel.tumblr.com/)


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